Dr. E. V. S. Kiran Kumar Donthu
Dr E V S Kiran Kumar Donthu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture, Planning and Design at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi. Having a diverse set of academic qualifications in built environment & sustainability, he acquires over 9+ years of academic, research (excluding PhD) and industry experience. Pior to IIT-BHU, he was a faculty in Industrial Design at National Institute of Design, and a visiting faculty to Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. He completed PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and a post-doctoral research fellowship from Energy Research Institute @NTU. He was also a visiting researcher to CNRS laboratory of engineering sciences for the environment at La Rochelle University, France. Prior to NTU, he was a Research Associate at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India. He is a recipient of Minister’s award from Ministry of National Development, Singapore and ‘Roll of honour” from TERI for his research contribution. He holds a master degree in Building Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Madras and a bachelors degree in Architecture from Andhra University.
Having worked on the first IGBC platinum rated green home in the state of Telangana, and the first GRIHA 5-star rated residentail township in the state of Andhra Pradesh, he is specialized in the areas of energy efficient & low carbon building technologies, sustainable and climate resilient construction in tropical climates. His past work includes design charettes and parametric design approach for sustainable building design; demand-side building energy optimisation: impact of building form on energy consumption, impact of cool roofs and vegetation on microclimate, window/ shading design optimization and availability of daylight in high rise buildings; visual comfort, building thermal analysis and energy simulations; study of adaptive thermal comfort based setpoint on energy savings; energy analysis of artificial lighting and rooftop solar PV; integration of heat pump and solar thermal technologies for water heating in hot humid climates; design and analysis of passive/ low energy building design strategies such as, passive downdraft evaporative cooling, radiant cooling for residential and commercial buildings; resource efficiency with sustainable water and waste management strategies.
Besides this, he gained experience on performance evaluation (using both experimental and theoretical) of various building envelope technologies, energy efficient lighting controls and cooling technologies such as heat control films, double skin facades, electrochromic glazing, automatic daylight redirecting blinds, micro mineral based cool roof technologies, DALI integrated LED lighting, chilled beams, movable external window shading, PCM embedded roof tiles, durable nano cool surface coatings and indoor air pollution and moisture abating paints. He also aquired with other technical skills such as, developing theoretical models to use satellite based solar radiation data for building analyses, thermal performance indicators and characterization of building materials for Indigenous roof tiles, thermal and air flow characterization using IR thermography and heat flux measurements, luminance mapping using HDR image analysis, visual comfort analysis based on colour temperature characterization, field studies on indoor air quality, CO2 decay tests and blower door tests for building air tightness measurements, calibration of side-by-side rotatable test beds, design and execution of laboratory test setup for urban heat island evaluation, physical modeling using scaled similarity theories, field experimentation, theoretical models for transient thermal performance analysis using 1D finite difference methods; analytical models for surface energy balance, Influence of buildings on urban microclimate, outdoor thermal comfort models and evaluation; resource efficiency surveys & energy audits for Indian commercial buildings, railway stations and data centers, cost models for climate resilient housing structures in consultation with stakeholders in the South Asian countries-Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan; carbon footprint and life cycle cost analyses for affordable green homes,
He has collaborated with industry partners, public and private agencies on various projects, some of which including, agencies such as GDN, UNEP, DST- India, IGBC, GRIHA, LBNL-Flexlab and Industries like 3M, TRANE, SHARP and Saint Gobain. In addition, he also gained expertise in prototyping, teaching, techniques for creating novel products and solutions through design and technical interventions.
AR 304 Advanced Building Construction (IIT-BHU, Even semester)
AR 421 Construction Project Management (IIT-BHU, Even semester)
Design Research Methods (NID AP, Even Semester)
Materials & Processes (NID AP, Odd Semester)
CE 402L Functional Design of Buildings (IIT T, Odd Semester)
Sponsor: Indorama Ventures Center for Clean Energy Plaksha University, Punjab Role: Advisor |
Sponsor: Northumbria University, New Castle, UK Role: Collaborator |
Sponsor: United Naitons Environment Programme Role: Co-PI |
Sponsor: Saint Gobain Research India Role: PI |
Sponsor: Ishaan Industries, Japeva Engineering Pvt Ltd Role: PI |
Sponsor: Ingersoll Rand Engineering and Technology Centre, India Role: PI |
Sponsor: South Asian Network for Economic Research Intstitutes (SANEI) Role: PI |
- Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED®) Accredited Professional
- WELL Building Standard Accredited Professional (WELL®AP)
- Registered Architect by the Council of Architecture, India
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Journals
International Conference
National Conference
Books & Chapters
Magazine articles
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- Recipient of SBSE Jeffrey Cook 2024 Retreat Scholarship, Travel grant to Arizona, USA, July 2024
- Sub-committee member for developing Energy Conservation and Sustainability Building Code (ECSBC) 2023-2024.
- Finalist: Pitch to Policy India, 2021- A building policy intervention competition held by Global Building Performance Network (GBPN)
- Summer School Grant: The Future of Urban Society- Science, Technology- (Prototyping Policy Practice),” program by Singapore-ETH Center for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC), June 2019
- Minister's Award (Team), Ministry of National Development (MND), Singapore, 2017
- Roll of Honour, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), 2014-15
- Development team member: GRIHA rating system for Large Developments V.2015
- Finalist: International competition on designing external and movable shading system (EMSYS) organized by the Indo-Swiss Building Energy Efficiency Program (BEEP), 2016
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Associate Member |
American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers (ASHRAE) |
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Member |
Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE) |
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Member |
International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) |
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Member |
International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) |
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Associate Member |
Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) |
- Jury Panel: Carbon Zero Challenge, IIT Madras, supported by U S Consulate Chennai, Polaris, Thales and Aquamap. Apr 2025
- Jury Panel: Ideas to Impact (i2I) nation-wide challenge by IIT Madras & Wipro for prototyping carbon-neutral concepts, Mar 2025.
- Reviewer: For various journals in the built environment domain; Elsevier, MDPI, Sage, Springer, Wiley publishers
- Reviewer for Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN), course proposal(s) 2025.
- Faculty Lead, Solar Decathlon India 2024 Challenge-Residential Cooling, Team Celcius from National Institute of Design (NID), AP
- Faculty Advisor, Solar Decathlon India 2024 Challenge-Multi family housing, Team Paargami from School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Vijayawada
- Advisor, Smart home: Demonstration cum testing facility, Indorama Ventures Center for Clean Energy Plaksha University, Punjab 2024-25
- Jury Panel: Sustainable Architecture, Design jury for Master’s students at School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Vijayawada May 2024
- Jury Panel: Environmental Design jury for Master’s thesis students, at College of Engineering, Trivandrum, India May 2023
- International Scientific Committee: 1st ACM workshop on advancement in Building energy benchmarking systems, Nov’22, Boston, USA
- Organizing member for Regional Green Building Conferences in Bangalore 2011-2015
- Mentor and Jury member for Inter University Sustainability Challenge (IUSC) conducted by Green Add+ under University of Cambridge’s program on sustainability leadership during October 2011
- International Scientific Committee: Conference on Advances in Building Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Feb’ 13,
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Sustainable Smart Cities: Modelling urban heat mitigation, technological solutions, Faculty Development Program (FDP), Department of Energy and Power Electronics, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, 2025.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Design for sustainability, 2ND international conclave on sustainable technology -2025, National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, 2025.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Fundamentals of urban microclimate modeling, Masters of Sustainable Architecture, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, 2024
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Energy-efficient retrofitting of existing buildings across different climatic zones in India, State level training program on Energy Efficient Retrofit of existing buildings, Vijayawada, Bureau of Energy Efficiency & The Energy and Resources Institute, 2024.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Laboratory level sky dome test setup for studying urban thermal environment- scale model experiments for urban cooling, SBSE Retreat 2024, Biosphere 2, Oracle, USA.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Urban cooling solutions, Workshop on Uttar Pradesh Urban Cooling Policy-Lucknow, 2024.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Introduction to Industrial Design; Masters course at IIT Tirupati: ME5202, Product design & Development 2024.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Campus design: A holistic approach, Dept. of Architecture, College of engineering Trivandrum, 2023.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Human senses and sensor devices, department of design, IIT Hyderabad, 2023.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Sustainable urbanisation, Centre for urban science and engineering, IIT Bombay, 2023.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Cool surface as urban heat island mitigation. IAQVEC-March technical seminar, 2023
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Building envelope, Faculty Development Program (FDP), Building Science for Architects: Advances and Sustainable Concepts, SRM School of Architecture and Interior Design, 2022.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Building Performance Simulation- Science and Applications, Faculty Development Program (FDP), NIT Warangal, Facilitating Digital Transformation in Design, Construction and Management Processes of Civil Engineering, 2022.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Cool Surface as Urban Heat Island Effect Mitigation Strategy for Tropical Climate, French-Singaporean Network in Renewable Energies (SINERGIE)- 1st Webinar, 2021
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Optimization of Building Energy Performance, Guest Lecture for M Tech Industrial Automation, NIT Trichy, Course: Building and Infrastructure Systems and Automation, 2021 & 2022.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Mix-design of building fabric Engineering low carbon concrete to reduce CO2 emissions, Pitch to policy India, Global Building Performance Network, 2021.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Cool Singapore_ Experimental studies on urban microclimate, ERI@N Innovation Workshop 2020.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., A tropical urban microclimate case study in Singapore_ Experimental and numerical results, 4th meeting of the French-Singaporean Research Network on Renewable Energy, 2019.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Vernacular architecture of India and passive energy concepts, La Rochelle University, France, 2019.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Daylight Integration in Buildings, Advanced Course on Sustainable Lighting Practices, TERI Bangalore, 2016.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Microclimate & UHI modeling and thermal performance of building materials, Workshop on analytical methods and usage of tools in predicting the sustainable performance of built environment, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, 2016.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Energy efficient building envelope, STTP on New dimensions of Sustainability in Built environment, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, 2016.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Envelope Performance Evaluation Studies- in Collaboration with Industry, Sustainable facade conference, New Delhi, 2016
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Studies on Indoor Air Quality, Saint Gobain Research India-University Day, Chennai, 2015.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Building Design Optimization, GRIHA Evaluators and Trainers Program, Goa College of Architecture, 2015.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Energy Efficiency in Buildings, One day seminar on benefits of green buildings and GRIHA rating system, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 2015.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Thermally Responsive Building Materials and Technologies, 6th GRIHA Regional Conference on ‘Accelerating Sustainability in Built Environment, Bangalore, 2015.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Thermally Appropriate Building Material Technologies, The GRIHA Summit 2015, New Delhi, 2015.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Energy, water and waste management in buildings, Workshop on Green Building Concepts & its Advantages, Anna University, Chennai, 2014.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Reducing Urban Heat Island & Imperviousness in Bangalore, Asia-Pacific Network Workshop on Systems Thinking & Adaptive Governance, Bangalore, 2014.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Ecological Concepts in Buildings- Case study of TERI office in Bangalore, National workshop on frugal engineering innovations for sustainable built environment, Dayananda Sagar college of engineering, Bangalore, 2014.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Energy efficiency in buildings, One day professional training for Ingersoll Rand Engineering Division in Bangalore, 2013.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., Green Building – TERI (South Regional Centre), Bangalore, National Convention of Environmental Engineers & National Seminar on Fostering green innovations for green growth; Institute of Engineers, Bangalore, 2014.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K., GRIHA- The National Green Building Rating System, Indian Institute of Architects- Green Building Workshop- Bangalore, 2012.
- Kumar, D. E. V. S. K.,Innovations in Sustainability, Shaastra 2011, Students Technical fest at Indian Institute of technology Madras, Chennai.