New Delhi: In a robust move to further strengthen its academic excellence, UPES- a leading multi- disciplinary private University has roped in former design and innovation chief at Tata Interactive Systems- Manisha Mohan as Director, School of Design (SoD). The University also announced the joining of Vikas Satwalekar as a distinguished Professor at SoD.

These appointments are envisioned to reinforce the University’s commitment of imparting world class education, under the leadership of talented and discerning faculty, who are veterans in their fields.

Commenting on Ms Manisha Mohan’s appointment, Dr Deependra Kumar Jha, Vice Chancellor, UPES said, “Manisha’s vast experience and exhaustive knowledge base makes her an ideal choice for our School of Design. She will be instrumental in leading the School towards delivering contemporary and cross-functional design education. At UPES, we are committed to developing students into industry-ready professionals, which is only possible through multiple, result-oriented industry-academia interfaces. Roping in an industry veteran as the School of Design head is a significant step in that direction.”

Manisha is a seasoned design professional and brings with her more than two decades of rich experience in e-learning, design and animation. An expert in Graphic Design, Animation, Experience Design, UI/UX Design, Illustration, Drawing, Instructional Design and Interaction Design, she has extensively worked on interactive products that assess and remedy children with Learning Disability.

During her stint at Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) as Chief – Design and Innovation, she was driving research in emerging technologies and was also instrumental in setting up the 2D and 3D animation studio within TIS, which was focused on learning and marketing communications applications including 3D animation, motion graphics, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Speaking about her new role, Manisha Mohan, Director- School of Design, UPES, said, “These are exciting times for design professionals as organizations have begun to realize that design can make or break a business proposition. Joining UPES School of Design seemed the perfect next natural move in my career as this role will allow me to contribute through my expertise and industry linkages towards developing the next generation of talent.”

Manisha has won several national and international awards for innovation and design for her customer-centric projects across verticals such as Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail, Publishing etc.

Prof. Satwalekar has nurtured and mentored design education over the years as the former Executive Director of National Institute of Design and Head of its Visual Communication program. Vikas Satwalekar is the Partner at Satwalekar Design Studio and was a jury member at India’s Best Design Awards 2017. As a graphic designer, he has created corporate identity programs for Mother Dairy, National Dairy Development Board, four regional identities for Channel Tara, Broadcast Worldwide Pvt Ltd, Doordarshan Channel identities (DD news, Metro, National Sports, Regional Doordarshan Channels, Prasar Bharati) and others.

UPES School of Design

School of Design (SoD) at UPES offers specialized design programs in areas of industrial and product design, transportation and mobility design, graphic design, interaction design, interior and retail space design. Keeping in view the requirement of commercially viable and technically advanced designs, SoD has designed well-structured curriculum to cover essential aspects such as fundamentals of design, sketching & rendering, model making, ergonomics, digital design tools, design management etc.