Nagesh Kolagani

Dr. Nagesh Kolagani works on participatory modeling (PM) in the agriculture and health sectors using GIS, drones, and AI/ML. His focus is on simplifying these tools for use by farmers, NGO field staff, and students engaged in village development efforts.

He has been organizing highly successful PM workshops, sessions, and streams since 2012 at the biannual congresses of the international society iEMSs.org, held in Europe and the USA. In recognition of his contributions, he was elected a Fellow of iEMSs in 2023. The society publishes the high-impact journal Environmental Modelling & Software (EMS), with an impact factor of 4.6: View Award.

Publications: He has published several participatory modeling papers in SCI journals (WoS Researcher ID: AAF-4267-2020):Scopus Profile.
He also served as guest editor of a special issue on PM in the Journal of Environmental Management and Assessment (JEMA) in 2024:ScienceDirect.

Since 2024, he has been teaching an NPTEL+ course on ‘GIS, Drones, and Machine Learning for Resource Mapping’:NPTEL Course.

Academic and Professional Background:
Dr. Kolagani joined Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM), Odisha in 2019 as Professor of CSE, and CUTMAP in 2024 as Professor of CSE and Dean (Research & Innovation).
His previous positions include:

• Associate Professor of CSE at IIIT Sri City (2016–2019)
• Principal Scientist at IIT Madras (2007–2010 & 2012–2016)
• Software Engineer in the USA (1992–1995)

He is an alumnus of IIT Madras (BTech, 1988 & PhD, 2016) and the University of Hawaii, USA (MS, 1992).