Khalid Bashir / 2015
Even when he was still a student at DPS Srinagar, Khalid knew clearly what he wanted to do with his life: contribute back to society. As a dipsite graduate, he was counted among average, shy and silent students but the free and stimulating environment at DPS Srinagar allowed him to explore many different faces of himself. Khalid was always interested in science and thus paved the way for studying engineering later.
After graduating from DPS Srinagar, Khalid did his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering from Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai. Striving for professional excellence, he was awarded a Certificate of Merit, in recognition for his outstanding performance. He secured Sixth (6th) rank among 209 candidates who graduated in 2015. This recognition served as a much needed boost by which he was able to qualify GATE (Civil Engineering) exam.
After qualifying GATE examination, Khalid’s academic career took him to the NIT Agartala where he did his Masters in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. Motivated by many job opportunities and personal interest, he originally did plan to be an engineer while he had never imagined pursuing an academic career. During his Masters, Khalid’s research article was awarded the “Best Research Paper” at an International Conference conducted by BITS Pillani. It was during this time that he realized he wanted to opt research as his career. Through his continuous efforts, he found a place in Dept of Earthquake Engineering – Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee for his PhD. “This department is the only one of its kind in the country that deals with earthquake engineering problems and challenges. I’m presently working as a Senior Research Fellow at IIT Roorkee”, said Khalid.
His research primarily focuses on providing an economical and practical solution for designing foundations, which provide alternatives to the use of ground improvement techniques and deep foundations. Khalid has successfully filed a patent on his doctoral research topic at the Indian Patent office in the name of IIT Roorkee. The proposed patent idea provides a practical solution to the method of installation/construction of a earthquake resistant foundations based on the concept of bioinspired geotechnics, by mimicking the tree root system.
Khalid was invited to present his work at 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering conducted under the auspices of International Association for Earthquake Engineering at Japan in 2021. Recently he received an acceptance and invitation to present his work in Geo-Congress 2023, which is being conducted by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) at Los Angeles, USA during March 2023. Also his application was recommended by IIT Roorkee for sponsoring his travel via International Travel Support (ITS) Scheme and has been awarded the financial grant to attend the international scientific event by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
Khalid recalls, “Teachers at DPS Srinagar have not only acted as supervisors in my studies but also as mentors in my career. They have provided valuable comments and provided the positive reinforcement which proved beneficial in shaping my career. I have had the pleasure of having many amazing teachers, but looking back, I know that the mould of who I am and what I believe in was all acquired in those first couple of years in DPS. I strongly believe that DPS has helped me to transform my journey to where I am today”.
In future he views himself among the researchers and become an accepted and productive member of the research community. Also he’ll be incubating his patent idea into a technology based startup.
