Nipesh is a Scientific Collaborator at the Institute.

He did his PhD at UNIL under the supervision of Prof. René Véron and was funded by the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship. His PhD thesis looked at urban informality in India and primarily drew case studies from different parts of the city of Delhi. It attempted to critically engage with the urbanisation process through the lens of informality.

He pursued his under-graduate studies in Architecture from National Institute of Technology Calicut (portfolio); and his post-graduate studies in Urban Design from School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi (portfolio). Before starting his PhD he was teaching at an architecture school in India for two years (2012-14), where he conducted courses on urban design, participatory settlement study (link), history of architecture (link), and architecture design (link). He was also associated with the social enterprise 'micro Home Solutions' as an urban designer for more than a year (2011-12). There, he was involved in the urban design of in-situ slum rehabilitation and other research related to informal housing in India. Nipesh started his career as an architect in Delhi, where he worked on various institutional architecture projects with Prof. K T Ravindran (2008-09).

Nipesh's research interest lies in the broader domain of informality and how it unfolds, effects, and politicises the urbanisation process in general and the city in particular. His past research centred on Indian cities, but he now intends to broaden his focus to other post-colonial cities in South Asia.