👥 SCULPT Team

We’re not just a lab - we’re a learning community, built on curiosity, mutual respect, and a shared belief that better questions make better cities. At SCULPT, every student brings a new lens, every project sparks a new path, and every journey is better when walked together.

This is a team that builds not just mathematical models for transportation planning, but meaning - one line of code, one map, one long chai or coffee conversation at a time. And somewhere in the middle of it all is one slightly eccentric professor holding the compass :)

Principal Investigator

Dr. Agnivesh Pani

Dr. Agnivesh is an Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at IIT (BHU) Varanasi, specialising in transportation planning. His research spans a wide spectrum of freight and public transport systems, with core contributions in freight travel demand modelling, city logistics, last-mile delivery planning, and the development of aggregation techniques and multi-objective optimisation algorithms for freight-centric zoning of cities. His recent work focuses on leveraging large-scale data, such as vehicle registrations, built environment, and app-based platforms, to address complex public transport and freight planning challenges in Indian cities. He actively integrates behavioural, spatial, and computational approaches to develop data-driven, policy-relevant insights. Dr. Pani has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, including Transportation Research Part A, D, and E, Transport Geography, Transport Policy, and Transportation Research Record. His work was recognised with the Best Paper Award by the Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics Committee (AT015) at the 2020 TRB Annual Meeting. Prior to joining IIT (BHU), he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Memphis, USA. He earned his Ph.D. and M.E. from BITS Pilani and was also a visiting researcher at Hiroshima University, Japan.

Google Scholar Profile - https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?hl=en&user=GdKQ7RoAAAAJ

PhD Students/JRFs

Hridya G Muralidharan

Ph.D Student (2023-Onwards)

Topic: Invisible Mobilities - Overlooked Trip Purposes and Patterns in Travel Behaviour Modelling

Suprava Mishra

Ph.D Student (2023-Onwards)

(Co-Supervised with Dr. Ankit Gupta)

Topic: Multi-Scale Freight Demand Modelling for Urban and Regional Logistics

Mudit Verma

Ph.D Student (2025-Onwards)

Topic: Invisible Mobilities - Overlooked Trip Purposes and Patterns in Travel Behaviour Modelling

JL Sriniketh

Ph.D Student (2025-Onwards)

Topic: Electric Vehicle (EV) Battery Circularity & Transportation System Analysis

Ishita Pragya

Ph.D Student (2023-Onwards)

(Co-Supervised with Dr. Nipjyoti Bharadwaj - IIT BHU - IIT Guwahati JDP)

Topic: Truck Traffic Impacts of Multimodal Logistics Parks

Masters'/IDD Students

Sanjeev V.A

Economic analysis of Indian transport users

Sumana Sree

Data-driven Transport Analytics

Naman Kumar

Transit Planning

Sachin Rishi

Inclusivity and Urban Planning

Nikhil Gadham

Urban Freight Project
(NIT Trichy)

UG Research Assistants (RAs)
Dedicated UG/IDD Students Working on Long-Horizon Research Tracks (1-3 Year Journeys)

Ayush Raj

ICSSR Project
Grid-level Mobility Project

Rajat Varshney

ICSSR Project YatraSphere

Naisarg Raj Pandey

ICSSR Project
Mode Shares

Vedaant Gupta

ICSSR Project
Grid-level Mobility Project

Jatin Singh

Travel Diary Project

Jatin Kumar

Travel Diary Project

Ayush Kumar

Benchmarking Cities & Transit

Apoorv

Travel Behaviour Project

Krish Kumar

Travel Behaviour Project

Kartik Sharma

Freight Project

Aarush Garg

PCU Project

Adarsh Pandey

PCU Project

⏳ Alumni

Former PhD Students

Dr. Mayank Sukhija
Former Ph.D. Student
🎓 Thesis Defended in 2023
(Co-Supervised with Dr. Nikhil Saboo)

Thesis: Impacts of Production Temperatures on Performance of Warm Mix Asphalt
🟢Currently: Postdoc, Oregon State University

Nirmal Prasad
Former Ph.D Student
🎓 Thesis Defended in 2025
(Co-Supervised with Dr. Nikhil Saboo)

Topic: Rejuvenators and the Aging Behavior of Recycled Asphalt Mixes

Faijan Ali Ansari

Ph.D Student (2021-Onwards)

(Co-Supervised with Dr. Smruti Sourav Mohapatra - IIT (ISM) Dhanbad)

Topic: Traffic and Worker Assessment of Highway Work Zones

Former Master's or IDD Students

Baibhav Mohanty
🎓 Grad. 2025
Thesis: Mobility Markets Beyond Geography (MoRTH Project)
🟢 Currently: Product Analyst @ Zomato

Tanushri Chauhan
🎓 Grad. 2025
Thesis: Mobility Analytics (Public vs Freight vs Private) (MoRTH Project)

Prashant Kumar Rai
🎓 Grad. 2025
Thesis: Urban Planning for Solid waste management (IOCL Project)

Aadil M Moopan
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Transit Demand Algorithms and Network Design (US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: Software Quality Engineer @ Trading Technologies

Shijith S
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Transit Planning for Varanasi Ropeway and Dashboard Design (US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: Software Engineer @ Optym

Shravan G
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Regional Planning Models for Districts in India (US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: Software Engineer @ TCS

Tejaswa Mishra
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Proximity Planning and 15 Minute Cities (US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: SDE @ BNY Mellon

Tejaswa Mishra
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Transit Ridership Prediction
(US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: SDE-1 @ Javis

Devang Sharma
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Modelling of Aerial Ropeway Shift
Co-supervised with Dr. Ankit Gupta
(US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: Data Scientist @ Publicis Sapient

Pankaj Gupta
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Proximity Planning and 15 Minute Cities (US-India Project)

🟢 Currently: Govt. Job

Gaurav Tripathi
🎓 Grad. 2024
Thesis: Transit Ridership Prediction
(US-India Project)
🟢 Currently: Steel Authority of India Limited SAIL (GATE AIR 277)

Sourav Maheswari
🎓 Grad. 2023
Thesis: EV Charging Infrastructure Analysis
(ICSSR Project)
🟢 Currently: Analyst at Cube Highways

Former Project Associates & RAs (Long-Horizon Research Tracks - 1-3 Years of Association)

Shambhavi Sinha
🎓 Grad. 2025
Former RA (From SPA Delhi)
Worked on Mahakumbh Project, MoUD
🟢 Currently: Incoming Ph.D. Student at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA

Nandini Bhimsaria
🎓 Grad. 2025
Former Chanakya Fellow (IIT BHU)
Worked on IDAPT Project, IIT BHU
🟢 Currently: Associate Consultant, MasterCard, India

Aryasen Gupta
🎓 Grad. 2025
Former RA (IIT BHU)
Worked on the MoRTH Project
🟢 Currently: Consultant, Evalueserve

Shreepati Jha
🎓 Grad. 2024
Former RA (From SPA Delhi)
Worked on the DST India-USA Project
🟢 Currently: Ph.D. Student at University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA