<p style="text-align: justify;">As a Civil Engineer, my long‑term professional vision has been to build a career that integrates teaching, research, and industry‑oriented consultancy. This vision led me to pursue an MTech + Ph.D. in Transportation Systems Engineering at Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, where I strengthened both my disciplinary expertise and my identity as an academic committed to nurturing the next generation of engineers. Teaching has consistently been my core motivation. I derive immense satisfaction from engaging with students, structuring concepts in transportation and planning into intuitive, application‑oriented learning experiences, and mentoring them towards independent thinking and professional responsibility.&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">During my doctoral journey, I have actively participated in sponsored and consultancy projects under the guidance of my supervisor. These projects have spanned traffic safety, urban transportation planning, traffic management, and infrastructure evaluation, and have provided intensive exposure to working with municipal bodies, police authorities, and policymakers. This experience has honed my abilities as a leader and coordinator, enabled me to handle multidisciplinary teams, and deepened my appreciation of evidence‑based decision‑making in practice. It has also sharpened my interest in applied research that directly informs policy and implementation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">NICMAR&rsquo;s identity as a specialized, industry‑linked university in planning, infrastructure, and project management, with a strong emphasis on sustainability and innovation, aligns closely with my academic orientation and research interests in transportation planning and urban mobility. I see strong potential to contribute to and collaborate with NICMAR&rsquo;s centres, schools, and industry partners through teaching, sponsored research, and consultancy assignments in transport planning, mobility analytics, and urban infrastructure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Pune is my preferred city for building a long‑term academic career, given its growing status as an educational and infrastructure hub and its relevance for urban transport research. Additionally, my spouse, an IT Engineer working with Siemens in Balewadi, Pune, reinforces my personal commitment to settling in the city and contributing continuously and stably to NICMAR&rsquo;s academic community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I look forward to contributing to NICMAR as a dedicated faculty member, designing and delivering rigorous courses, supervising student projects and dissertations, leading practice‑oriented research, and supporting the university&rsquo;s vision of shaping industry‑ready, socially responsible professionals for the built environment.</p>