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Prof G C Nandi
Prof G C Nandi
I am a researcher, consultant and former Professor of IIIT-A working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Embodied AI, Robotics, and Human–Robot Interaction.
I am a researcher, consultant and former Professor of IIIT-A working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Embodied AI, Robotics, and Human–Robot Interaction.
Throughout my career, I played a key role in founding the premier Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad-serving as its senior-most Professor, Dean of Academic Affairs, and twice leading the institution as Director through its critical phase of transition and growth.
My current research focuses on a fundamental question:
My current research focuses on a fundamental question:
How can we build intelligent machines that do not merely recognize the world, but understand it, reason about it, learn from experience, and collaborate naturally with humans?
How can we build intelligent machines that do not merely recognize the world, but understand it, reason about it, learn from experience, and collaborate naturally with humans?
My research explores Generative AI, multimodal foundation models, world models, Vision-Language-Action models, embodied reasoning, robotic manipulation, and human-centered physical AI.
My research explores Generative AI, multimodal foundation models, world models, Vision-Language-Action models, embodied reasoning, robotic manipulation, and human-centered physical AI.
The long-term goal is to develop intelligent embodied systems that can perceive, imagine, remember, reason, act, and continuously adapt while interacting with people and the physical world.
The long-term goal is to develop intelligent embodied systems that can perceive, imagine, remember, reason, act, and continuously adapt while interacting with people and the physical world.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpore ( Then know as B E College) 1984
Masters of Production Engineering , Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 1986.
(Title of master's Thesis: Development of a slip sensor for Robot End-Effectors).
PhD ( Engineering ), IPM, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1992
(Title of Ph.D thesis: Controlling the Equilibrium of Vertical wall Climbing Robots, Submitted and defended in the Scientific Council - D.002.87.01, Ishlinsky Institute for Problems in Mechanics Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (IPMech RAS), 1992. ( Synposis of the thesis here)
Academic Awards
National merit Scholarship , awarded by Govt of India, 1978
Full Scholarship for pursuing Masters of Engineering, awarded by Govt. of India, 1984-1986
Awarded Indo-USSR Doctoral Fellowship for pursuing Ph.D in Engineering Science from Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. 1988-1992
Awarded Postdoctoral research fellowship by The Chinese University at Hong Kong , 1997-1998
Awarded Visiting Professorship by the Institute for Software Research, Carnegien Mellon U iversity, USA 2010-2011.
Professional Experience
A. In Academia
IIIT Allahabad (2001–2026)
Full Professor | Former Director/President (2015–2017) | Former Dean of Academic Affairs
Led internationally funded research programs in robotics, AI, autonomous systems and machine learning
Built and led the Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (RAIL)which took the shape of a Center for Intelligent Robotics.
Directed academic and research strategy for a leading technology institute
Managed international collaborations with CMU, EPFL, UIUC, Wisconsin and others
EPFL – Visiting Faculty (2006, 2013)
Carnegie Mellon University , Institute for Software Research – Visiting Faculty (2010–2011)
Carnegie Mellon University , Robotics Institute– Visiting Research Scientist (1994–1995)
IIT Dhanbad, Assistant Professor (1998-2001)
NIT Durgapur , Lecturer ( 1986-1998)
B. In industry
Hindustan Motors - A car manufacturing Industry, 1984 ( 9 months).
Bokaro Steel Plant ( 6 months).
C. Success in WB JEE in 1980
JEE Engineering rank-272
1) Offered any branch of Engineering for study at IIEST ( then BE College) and accepted Mechanical Engineering Branch in 1980.
2) Offered admission in Electrical Engineering Branch at Jadavpur University in 1980
3) Offered any branch for study at NIT , Durgapur ( then REC Durgapur)
JEE Medical rank-395
Offered admission at RG Kar Medical College , Calcutta.
Selected Research grant Received and Executed
US NSF-DST: Emergent Cooperative Behavior for Automated Vehicles (2024–Present)
US NSF-DST: Safe Human-Aware Robot Navigation in Warehouses (PI) (2023-2025)
EU IRAS-HUB Collaborative project on Robotics capacity development.(2023-2025)
DAAD–DST Indo‑German Research Grant for Human–Robot Interaction Using DNN‑Based Found Models (2022-2026).
Indo-Swiss Project: Active Prosthetic Limbs Using Robotics Technology (2006-2009)
Selected Publications and achievements
( For details please visit my RESEARCH page on this site)
AAAI 2026 – Grasp Re-alignment via Iterative Matching: Task-Oriented Grasping
ICLR 2026 Workshop – QueST: Persistent Queries as Semantic Monitors for Drift Suppression in Long-Horizon Tracking
NeurIPS 2024 Workshop – Cognitive Planning for Object Goal Navigation using Generative AI
NeurIPS 2023 Workshop– Language-Conditioned Semantic Search-Based Policy for Robotic Manipulation
CoRL 2024 – SplatR: Experience Goal Visual Rearrangement with 3D Gaussian Splatting
Applied Intelligence 2022 – Generative Model-Based Robotic Grasp Pose Prediction with Limited Dataset
CVPR 2020 Workshop – Robotic Grasp Detection by Learning Representation in a Vector Quantized Manifold
NSF-DST Research Program – Principal Investigator for Safe Human-Aware Robot Navigation in Warehouses
250+ Publications, interested persons can please visit this website: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=***&user=cVdB1iwAAAAJ
Selected Recognition
Winner, CVPR 2024 Embodied AI Challenge
Winner, NeurIPS 2023 OVMM Challenge
Senior Member, ACM
NSF-DST International Research Grant Recipient 2022
NSF-DST International Research Grant Recipient 2025
Membership of Professional bodies:
Life member- Robotics Society of India
ACM -Senior member.
IEEE & RAS society-Senior member (2001-2026).
Former member of Robotics and Remote System Division of American Nuclear Society .
Former member of SPIE ( 2001-2004), International society for optics and photonics
Founder Chairperson of ACM UP section chapter (2014).
Founder Chairperson of IEEE-Robotics and Automation Society Chapter, UP Section, Uttar Pradesh, India-211015 ( 2015).
Selected Links
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/gcnandi/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=***&user=cVdB1iwAAAAJ
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3788-3834
Research Gate Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/G-Nandi
How to contact
emails: gcnandi@iiita.ac.in , gcnandi.usa@gmail.com
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