Prof. Debasish Ghose is a renowned academic widely recognized for his pioneering research in autonomous systems, cooperative control, and swarm intelligence. A faculty member at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, since 1990, Prof. Ghose has played a transformative role in advancing research and education. He is the founder of the Guidance, Control and Decision Systems Laboratory (GCDSL) and the Mobile Robotics Laboratory (MRL) at IISc—two pioneering research centres that have shaped India’s academic landscape in guidance and motion planning, multi-agent systems, and decision science.

Prof. Ghose received his BSc (Engg) in Electrical Engineering from NIT Rourkela in 1982, followed by a Master’s and PhD in Electrical Engineering from IISc in 1984 and 1990, respectively. His PhD thesis advanced the field of multi-objective game theory, focusing on both static (matrix) and dynamic (differential) game formulations. Over the course of his career, he has held visiting positions at esteemed institutions, including the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Kangwon National University, the University of Exeter, and the University of Leicester.

A globally acclaimed leader in his field, Prof. Ghose has authored over 500 publications and book chapters. He is credited with pioneering developments such as the glowworm swarm optimization algorithm, and with introducing some of the most influential approaches to collision avoidance, distributed task allocation, and terminally constrained guidance problems, among several other foundational contributions to the field.  Till date he has supervised 57 PhD candidates, and under his mentorship, numerous doctoral students have gone on to prominent roles in academia, research organizations, and industry. His research has had a transformative impact on areas such as multi-vehicle coordination, dynamic optimization, guidance laws, and intelligent search strategies.

Prof. Ghose’s scholarly achievements have been recognized through numerous honours. He is an elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), and the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI). He is also an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). His scholarly contributions have garnered more than 13,800 citations and an h-index of 55 — a reflection of his profound and enduring impact on the academic community. 

Beyond research, Prof. Ghose has held several key academic leadership roles at IISc, including Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering (2012–2015) and Convener of the ISRO–IISc Space Technology Cell. He has served on the editorial boards of more than 10 prominent journals, including IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics and IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, and remains an advisor to several research organizations and startups.

Through a career marked by intellectual depth, dedicated mentorship, and leadership, Prof. Ghose has made an enduring contribution to India’s—and the world’s—advancement in autonomous and intelligent systems.