For a growing number of university teachers, the classroom is no longer confined to lecture halls. It extends to crime laboratories where students work on live evidence, field projects shaped by local communities and laboratories developing technologies for disasters, weather forecasting and climate change.
This year’s National Teachers Awards highlight that shift in higher education, recognising teachers whose work brings teaching, research and real-world problem-solving closer together. The 21 higher-education awardees include academics developing drones for disaster response, designing sustainable public buildings, using artificial intelligence to advance Sanskrit scholarship and working on technologies to tackle climate change.
President Droupadi Murmu will confer the awards on September 5 on 69 teachers — 48 school teachers and 21 teachers and faculty members from higher education institutions and polytechnics — at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be interacting with awardee teachers on the eve of Teachers’ Day on Friday at his residence 7, Lok Kalyan Marg in the capital.
At BITS Pilani, Prof Vinay Chamola works across Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, drones, cybersecurity and healthcare. His focus is on making advanced technology affordable and accessible beyond well-funded laboratories, according to the Ministry of Education’s award citation.
His team is developing autonomous drones that can operate where human access is difficult or dangerous, including during disasters. The research includes energy-efficient obstacle avoidance and autonomous charging systems to allow drones to operate longer with less human supervision.
{{/usCountry}}His team is developing autonomous drones that can operate where human access is difficult or dangerous, including during disasters. The research includes energy-efficient obstacle avoidance and autonomous charging systems to allow drones to operate longer with less human supervision.
{{/usCountry}}Chamola is also working on to take the technology to schools through low-cost, programmable and open-source educational drones that can help students learn programming, robotics and drone technology.
His work with students extends to entrepreneurship. Through BITS Pilani’s business incubator, PIEDS, he mentors startups. One such venture, Nawgati, which began as a student project on queuing systems, has grown into a technology company deploying solutions at fuel stations across India.
“Education should not stop at technical knowledge; students also need the confidence, judgment and resilience to turn ideas into impact,” Chamola told HT.
At IIT Roorkee, Prof Avlokita Agrawal’s work takes education into communities. In a state government school project in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, her team involved students, teachers and parents in designing the building, rather than limiting engagement to project funders. Local leadership and an engineering firm joined the effort, while an industry funded the construction and later adopted the school for five years, including its furniture and equipment.
It used locally available bricks and around 3,700-3,800 filler-clay pots in its roof, reducing concrete use, keeping the roof cooler and generating employment for local potters.
“Stakeholder engagement is an essential part of social sustainability,” Agrawal said.
Her work also examines traditional architectural knowledge. She argues that Vaastushastra should be understood in its social, cultural and environmental context rather than followed blindly, with principles such as orientation and open-to-sky spaces retaining environmental value while materials and dimensions evolve.
At the National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar, Prof Jayrajsinh Sarvaiya has developed postgraduate courses in forensic pharmacy, food forensics and medical devices. His centre has examined thousands of pharmaceutical, food and agricultural cases, with students working on live evidence and preparing analyses used in regulatory and enforcement processes, the ministry said.
At IIT Hyderabad, Prof Kirti Chandra Sahu studies raindrops at different altitudes to improve weather forecasting and climate modelling. At Karnataka Samskrit University, Prof Shivani V is linking Paninian grammar with computational linguistics, AI and digital humanities through initiatives including Sambhāshā, a digital platform for Sanskrit scholarship.
At IIT Bombay, Prof Vikram Vishal has worked on carbon capture, utilisation and storage and established a CCUS field laboratory.