Dr. Sartajvir Singh is currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer at the Center of Excellence in Socio-Environmental Sustainability for River Sand Mining (SENSRS) and Project Director (ICSSR Project) at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, India. He is a digital image analyst with expertise in remote sensing and earned his PhD in Electronics & Communication Engineering (Outstanding Thesis Awardee, 2018) after completing his M. Tech (Gold Medalist) and B.Tech with Distinction. He is a Registered Indian Patent & Trademark Agent and a DGCA-approved drone operator, with 70+ innovations (35+ patents granted) and 90+ SCI/Scopus-indexed publications. He has secured over four Crore (INR) research funding, received multiple fellowships, held editorial positions, and is an IEEE Senior Member, advancing electronics, image processing, and geospatial intelligence.Vishakha Sood is currently working as a Scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, Punjab, under the Women Scientist Scheme (WOS) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. She is also the founder of Aiotronics Automation Pvt. Ltd., supported under the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Startup Scheme. She received her Ph.D. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Chitkara University, Punjab, in 2020. She earned her B.Tech. degree from Himachal Pradesh University in 2008 and her M.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Punjab Technical University in 2011. She also completed an MBA in Human Resource Management in 2010. She has extensive academic and research experience and has authored research articles in SCI‑indexed journals and SCOPUS‑indexed book chapters and holds several inventions. Her research interests include satellite sensors, remote sensing, and digital image analysis. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and an active member of professional bodies including the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Punjab Science Congress (Punjab Academy of Sciences), IEEE Sensors Council, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, IEEE Women in Engineering, and the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Dr. Arun Lal Srivastav is working as Professor and Associate Dean (Research), Tulas University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. He received PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi. He has also done post-doctoral research at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. He is currently involved in the teaching of Environmental Science and Engineering, Disaster Management to the undergraduate engineering students. His research interests include water quality surveillance, climate change, water treatment, river ecosystem, soil health maintenance, engineering education, phytoremediation and waste management. Under his supervision, 3 PhD degrees have been awarded. He has published >150 research papers in various prestigious journals (Elsevier, Springer, IWA, Taylor & Francis etc.) including books, book chapters and conference publications. He has edited many books with Elsevier, Springer, NOVA, IGI global and Wiley. He worked on 04 Government sponsored projects (worth ~16 million INR) on phytoremediation, adsorption, capacity building, organic farming, leachate treatment, agro-waste management etc. He received the prestigious "Teachers Associateship for Research Excellence (TARE) Fellowship" followed by a research grant from the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Govt. of India in 2022. He has also filed 31 patents on multidisciplinary topics and 14 out of which have been granted by the Government of India. He has also been recognized among the top 2% worldwide scientists of Earth and Environmental Sciences jointly by Stanford University and Elsevier in the year 2023, 2024 and 2025. Recently, his name has been included in top 0.05% scholars of the year 2025 by ScholarGPS in Environmental Sciences.Dr. Ampatzidis is an Associate Professor leading a research and extension precision agriculture engineering program at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center (SWFREC) in Immokalee, Florida. He received his B.S. in Agriculture Science in 2002 from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) in Thessaloniki, Greece, with a major in row crops and ecology. After completing his bachelor’s degree, he enrolled in the Agricultural Engineering department and completed his M.S. in 2005 with an emphasis on precision agriculture and robotics. At the same time, he completed his second bachelor’s degree in Hydraulics, Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering in 2008 (AUTH). He received his PhD in Agricultural Engineering from AUTH in 2010 with an emphasis on precision agriculture and automation for specialty crops. His current research focuses on the mechanical harvesting of specialty crops, mechatronics, artificial intelligence, machine vision, precision agriculture, smart machines (e.g., smart spraying technologies), UAVs, and machine systems.
