Biography
Dr Nikita Hari is the Head of Teaching and Design Support Group at the Department of Engineering, University of Oxford.
A multi-award-winning interdisciplinary Engineer with more than a decade of integrated global career record spanning industry, start-ups and higher education.
Nikita holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and was a Faculty for Future Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford.
A TEDx speaker and Co-founder of two Edtech companies, Nikita is a champion for STEM and serves as a strategic advisor, influencing policy and systems across governments, startups, and universities.
Holding key roles such as CTO/Director/Co-founder and as the innovation and enterprise lead of UK's first industry-based university, her career journey is defined by leading transformative initiatives in engineering and education.
A passionate advocate for Engineering, Nikita’s vision is to engage, educate and inspire the next wave of changemakers, innovators, and leaders to engineer a better and sustainable future.
Awards and Prizes
- UCL Global Engagement Fund, 2023
- Listed in ’Engineers Making a Difference’ Book by Imperial College London and Gatsby Foundation, 2023
- Dyson, ‘Bringing Learning to Life’, 2022
- Listed in the ‘Top 50 Global Indian Women, 2021’
- EPSRC GaN Power Electronics Challenge Runner-up, 2019’
- Named ‘Clinton Global Changemaker, Class 2018’
- Finalist, IET Young Women Engineer in UK, 2018
- ‘Top 50 Women in Engineering in UK Under 35’- WES & UNESCO, 2017
- DevelopHer Educational Entrepreneur Award for Women in Tech in Cambridgeshire, 2017
- EPSRC Annual Power Electronics Best Research Award 2017, 2016
- Hult Prize Social Enterprise Competition Regionals Runner Up, 2015
- Finalist, ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ (Science in Europe Category) & British Indian in Science, 2015
- Schlumberger Faculty for Future Fellowship
- Google Europe Scholarship
- Cambridge Nehru Scholarship
Public Engagement and Impact:
- 60+ keynotes and 100+ global outreach talks to date, addressing c. 120k people in total and mentoring 100+ students across the globe.
- TEDx speaker for University of Cambridge (2018), notably delivered ‘AI: Making or Breaking Education’.
Key Elected/Invited roles:
- Steering Committee Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) Research, Innovation & Knowledge Transfer (RIKT) Network; Curriculum and Capacity Building European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI).
- Pedagogical Advisory Board, Proprep, SRM University Teaching and Learning Directorate
- Panelist,MIT Technology Review - USA
Research Interests
My research interests and skills have involved in the years to become more multi and inter-disciplinary in nature branching into Engineering Practice, Policy and Pedagogy.
Current research interests are multi-disciplinary spanning technical and pedagogical research areas in gallium nitride power electronics, machine learning for electronics applications, engineering net-zero and systems approach to innovation of engineering education integrating pedagogy, policy and practice.
Current Projects
- Systems Approach to Engineering Education
- Reimagining the Engineering Education Pedagogy
- Gallium Nitride Power Electronic Systems using Machine Learning.
- Thinking and Learning to be an Engineer using EHoM (Engineering Habits of Mind)
