Prof. Prabhakar V Varde

Homi Bhabha National Institute(HBNI)

Prof. Prabhakar V. Varde: A Senior Professor at Homi Bhabha National Institute. He is a Raja Ramanna Chair and Former Outstanding Scientist and Associate Director, Reactor Group at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. He also served as Hon. Professor of Practice at IIT Madras, for two terms during 2020 – 2022. He was awarded postdoctoral fellowship by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute during 2002 and 2003 in the area of digital system reliability and human factor development. He has also earned the distinction of working as a Visiting Professor for four terms during 2009 – 2017, at Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE), University of Maryland, MD, USA.

He has been actively involved in the area of reliability and probabilistic risk assessment for over 25 years. He has developed PRA model for the nuclear plants at BARC and also worked a Vice Chairman of the AERB committee for Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSs) for DAE facilities for over 15 years. He took classes for Reliability Engineering for four terms at BARC Training School and University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He has set up labs at BARC, viz, Nuclear Reactor Simulator, Life Cycle Reliability Engineering Lab, Prognostics and Health Management Lab and Accelerated Life Testing lab, to support for advanced research in the area of risk and reliability engineering. He is consultant and expert to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna and OECDs NEA-WGRISK, Paris in the area of Probabilistic Risk Assessment.

He is the lead founder of Society for Reliability and Safety (SRESA) in India and the lead Chief-Editor for SRESA’s Int. Journal Life Cycle Reliability and Safety Engineering. He organized five International Conferences (ICRESH) and 5 national conferences (NCRS) over 20 years.

Based on his research he has over 263 publications at national and international level that includes peer reviewed journal. This also includes 20 authored / co-authored, edited books and conference proceedings and technical volumes. He has citation index is at 1464, H-Index is 14, I-Index-16. He has been a Ph.D. and M. Tech Guide and member of Doctoral committee at HBNI. He has received many awards and recognition. In recent times i.e. 2017 and 2018 he received two DAE Group Achievements awards. He was the team leader for the Simulator Development Team. He was also a team member and took the responsibility as Associated Director, Reactor Group for commissioning and Criticality for the BARC’s prestigious Upgraded Apsara Reactor Project at BARC.

He has been a Ph.D. and M. Tech. guide and Ph.D. examiner at IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIIT-DMG, Jabalpur, Delhi University and in many other national institutions and universities.

Presently he is also working as President, SRESA for spreading risk and reliability awareness not only in academic circles but engineering students and developing means a method to develop tools and to support national programs. One of these initiatives is development of engineering codes and standards in the area of Safety and Reliability in India.

NOC: Risk-based Engineering, Homi Bhabha National Institute