Our Faculty

Principle Investigator

Dr. M. Manivannan

Haptics Lab

Department of Applied Mechanics
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Dr.M.Manivannan is a professor of Biomedical Engineering in IIT Madras. He was a visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) of Harvard Medical School (HMS) in Boston, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Maryland, and a visiting faculty in the Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore. He joined IIT Madras in Jun 2005, he has setup the first Touchlab in India at IIT Madras, which is also known as Haptics Lab. He holds PhD and ME degrees from the Indian Institute of Science(IISc), Bangalore; and Bachelors degree from Guindy Engineering College, Anna University.

Co-Principal Investigators

Dr.Kaushik Mitra

Computation Imaging Lab

Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Dr.Mansi Sharma

Computational Imaging Lab


Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Dr.Lata Dyaram

Organizational Behaviour Lab


Department of Management Studies
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Dr.Amit R.K.

Decision Engineering Lab


Department of Management Studies
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Dr.A.N.Rajagopalan

Image Processing and Computer Vision Lab


Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Dr.John Ebenaser

Algorithms and Complexity Theory Lab

Department of Computer Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Dr.Ganapathy Krishnamurthy

Medical Imaging Reconstruction Lab


Department of Engineering Design
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Dr.Nirav Patel

INSPIRE Lab


Department of Engineering Design
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

International Collaborators

Dr.Steve Lavalle, Finland
Co-Founder of Occulus, Perception Engineering Laboratory at the University of OULU
Dr.Mel Slater, Spain
EVENT Lab: Experimental Virtual Environments for Neuroscience and Technology, University of Barcelona
Dr.Mandayam Srinivasan, USA
Founder of The MIT Touchlab. UCL, UK.
Dr.Edward J Colgate, USA
Neuroscience and Robotics Lab, University of Northwestern.
Dr.Gerrald E. Loeb, USA
Biomedical Engineering and Neurology, USC Viterbi.
 Dr.Cagatey Bastogan, Turkey 
Robotics and Mechatronics Laboratory, KOC University
 Dr.Marimuthu Palaniswamy, Australia 
IoT, University of Melborne
Dr.Jung Kim, South Korea
Biorobotics Lab, KAIST
Dr.Venkatraman Sadanand, USA
Loma Linda Medical Center

National Collaborators

Dr.Abhishek Gupta, IIT Bombay
Haptics Lab, Mechanical Engineering
Dr.Sumit Kalra, IIT Jodhpur
Software Innovation Lab, Department of Computer Science
Dr.Abhijit Biswas, IISc Bengaluru
Haptic Lab, CPDM
Dr.Amit Bhardwaj, IIT Jodhpur
Haptics Lab, Electrical Engineering
Dr.Varun Dutt, IIT Mandi
VR Lab, Computing and Electrical Engineering
Dr.Amit Bhardwaj, IIT Jodhpur
Haptics Lab, Electrical Engineering
Dr.Varun Dutt, IIT Mandi
VR Lab, Computing and Electrical Engineering
Dr.Uttama Lahiri, IIT Gandhinagar
VR Lab,  Center for Cognitive and Brain Sdr.ciences
Dr.Sivakumar Balasubramaniani, CMC Vellore
VR Lab, Bioengineering
Dr.Bhavani Rao R, AMIRTA
AMACHI Labs, VR Skills Training
Dr.Souptick Chanda, IIT Guwahati
VR and Medical Simulations
Dr.Sivakumar Balasubramanium, CMC Vellore
VR and Rehabilitation

Post Doctoral Associates and Research Scholars

Dr.Madhan Kumar V.

Dr.Madhan has worked in simulation and modeling of Pacinian Receptors for various applications and he is extending his expertise to multi-modal systems. He is associated with XTIC as Adjunct Research Fellow.

Project Officers

Mr. Raghavendra Achari

Prior to joining IIT Madras, Raghav worked as Executive Producer (DISNEY), Studio Head (RedOctane of ACTIVISION Inc and Playizzon of JET Synthesys), Creative Director (Vreon/EON Reality, I NexGen and AUGRAY), Technical Art Director (TATA Elxsi), and CG supervisor (PENTAFOUR).

Currently, he is a Senior project officer in IIT Madras. His roles include project management, fund raising, and technology innovations.

Industry Leaders with XTIC

Shri. Rabindra Sah

Chief Engineer – Strategic Projects at Tata Technologies | Global Practice – Automotive & Industrial Heavy Machinery | Creating Industry Business Solutions for Digital & Physical Transformation in Product & Manufacturing

30 years of experience with Tata Technologies & Tata Motors, Strong AR/VR experience of end to end Automotive – Product Design to Manufacturing domain – Digital & Physical both, Subject Matter Domain Expert, Execution & delivery.

Dr.Ashok Maharaj

Ashok Maharaj has a MS and PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He was the Guggenheim Fellow with the National Air and Space, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. (2010-2011) and also worked on a research project for NASA to write about NASA’s Global Ventures. He is currently heading the XR Lab at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India. Over the last several years he has worked extensively on digital learning ecologies leveraging AR/VR/MR.