Dr. Nikhil Bugalia

Nikhil Bugalia is currently an Assistant Professor at the Building Technology, Construction Materials, and Management (BTCM) Group, Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras. He graduated in Civil Engineering in 2013 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and subsequently joined Fractal Analytics as a Senior Business Analyst. Post two years, he joined The University of Tokyo, Japan in 2015 to commence his master’s research in Civil Engineering. His research under the guidance of Dr. Koichi Maekawa examined the performance of Reinforced Concrete beams under long-term sustained loads. On completion, in 2017 he started his doctoral research focusing on the safety management of the Japanese High-Speed Rail, in the University of Tokyo under Dr. Kazumasa Ozawa. His doctoral research led to the development of a novel System Dynamics based simulation tool for guiding organizational policy for improving the “near-miss” reporting behavior of employees. Additionally, he identified a novel accident mechanism at an organizational and regulatory level for Japanese High-Speed Railways. His collaborative research projects have led to associations with the Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and East Japan Railway Company. His teaching engagements span across the Saitama University, the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies and The University of Tokyo. He currently serves as the secretary to the special interest group on “High-Speed Rail: Policy, Investments, and Impacts” for World Conference on Transport Research Society. With his latest position at IIT Madras, he is developing further on his research interests such as safety management for Railways and Construction sectors in India, as well as on broader areas of operations management of infrastructure projects.