Circular Strategies for Waste Management

Jayakrishna Kandasamy is a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India. His research focuses on the design and management of manufacturing systems and supply chains to improve efficiency, productivity, and sustainability. He works extensively on sustainable manufacturing, circular economy strategies, industrial symbiosis, and hybrid biocomposites. He has mentored six PhD, three MTech, and 38 BTech theses, resulting in 114 journal publications, 48 book chapters, 94 conference papers, four authored books, and 12 edited volumes. Dr Jayakrishna teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in manufacturing and industrial systems, and his innovative teaching practices have earned national recognition. He is ranked among the Top 2% most influential researchers globally by Stanford University (2023 and 2024) and has received multiple awards, including the Global Engineering Education Award (2021), Outstanding Professor in Supply Chain Management (2024), and the Institution of Engineers (India) Young Engineer Award (2019). He serves as Coordinator of the Circular Economy Club at VIT and holds editorial roles in several journals, including Operations Management Research, Circular Economy – Frontiers in Sustainability, as well as CRC Press’s book series Industrial Engineering, Systems, and Management.

Rajyalakshmi G is a professor in the Department of Manufacturing Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India. She received her PhD degree in Production Engineering in 2015 and her MTech degree in Industrial Engineering in 2003 from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India. Her research focuses on sustainable manufacturing, waste management, and optimisation, with more than 19 years of teaching and research experience in Mechanical Engineering. She has mentored three PhD, 15 MTech, and 50 BTech theses. She has published two books with international publishers (as author and co-author), 15 book chapters, and contributed over 60 articles to journals and conferences. Dr Rajyalakshmi serves as a reviewer for more than ten prestigious Web of Science journals and contributes actively to advancing sustainable manufacturing practices through her research and academic leadership.