Dr Sunny Bansal, an Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, has a strong research background in Design and Management, Architectural Design and Pedagogy, Urban and Peri-Urban Planning, Spatial Analytics and Transportation Planning and Management. He has published and presented his work extensively on national and international platforms, such as the NASA Land Cover/ Land Use Change Programme, EURA, UAA, AESOP, WCTR, ATRS and RSAI. He has also worked in various short-term and semester-long international planning and design studios with MIT, Columbia University, Georgia Tech and the University of Sydney, focusing on themes like smart infrastructure, water urbanism and sustainable urbanisation.

At Anant, Dr Bansal is involved with the School of Architecture and the PhD programme, offering his academic services to the Second-year Design Studios, Modern and Contemporary History and subjects related to Research, Reading and Writing. Besides that, he is also involved in various school-level activities, including Academic Coordination, Curriculum Development, Exhibitions, Colloquium, Symposium and related study programmes.

A PhD from IIT Kharagpur, which focuses on understanding and managing infrastructure-induced development in Indian cities, Dr Bansal also holds a BArch Degree from MANIT Bhopal and an MTech Degree with a specialisation in Infrastructure Design and Management from IIT Kharagpur. He is the recipient of the Institute Silver Medal (IIT Kharagpur) for securing the highest grade in Masters. He also received the prestigious DAAD-IIT Master Sandwich Scholarship and completed his seven-month postgraduate research at TU Darmstadt, Germany.

With more than ten years of experience in teaching, research and practice and as a research fellow, Dr Bansal was involved with a mega-exploratory and interdisciplinary project called SandHI, Science and Heritage Initiative at IIT Kharagpur. A Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India funded project, SandHI aimed to reinvent several traditional knowledge systems in India, including music, languages, social engineering and the creative economy. He was also associated with a research project titled ‘Urban Design, Planning and Engineering Exploration of Varanasi’. Besides research, Dr Bansal has worked as a Teaching Assistant at IIT Kharagpur. He has taught as an Assistant Professor at the Central University of Rajasthan and VIT Vellore and has worked on different architectural projects in Bhopal and Delhi.

Beyond academia, Dr Bansal loves to travel and explore the culture and architecture of new places in India and abroad. He likes to read (or hoard) books and watch movies and web series from different genres. Occasionally, Dr Bansal loves to don the pâtissier’s hat as he enjoys baking. He finds baking a creative, sensory and satisfying experience.