Prof. Sanjaya K Dash has obtained his B. Tech. (Agril. Engg.) from OUAT in 1987, M. Eng. (Ag.) from Rajasthan Agriculture University in 1989 and Ph.D. from IARI, New Delhi in 1999. He has been working in Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), Bhubaneswar in different capacities since 1989. In addition to his present responsibility as Dean of the faculty since June 2017, he also handled the additional charge of Dean, Students’ Welfare of the University during Sep, 2018-June 2021. Earlier to his joining as Dean, he worked as the Head, Dept. of Processing and Food Engineering at OUAT for 6 years. In addition, Prof. Dash has also been assigned the responsibility of Chairman of Technology Management Cell of OUAT, Nodal Officer of the State Level Technical Institute, PMFME, and Nodal Officer/ Chairman/ Member of many state level and University level activities/ committees.
Prof. Dash has handled eight externally funded projects including being the CPI of one NAIP project of ICAR. He has guided three Ph.D. scholars and 15 M. Tech. students. His present research interests include value chain management of perishables, innovative food packaging as well as grain processing. Prof. Dash has more than 70 research publications in national/ international journals, more than one hundred fifty popular technical articles, seven books with ISBN, three book chapters and 12 course manuals to his credit. Some of his books are included as text/ reference books in different SAUs/ technical universities. Prof. Dash has been a Visiting faculty/ Adjunct Professor/ Resource person to many central and state agricultural universities, ICAR institutes and Management Institutes. He has been a member of many important committees at National and State levels including member, QRT and PRT for several institutes, Member, BoS of Dr RPCAU, ANGRAU and BPUT. He is a member of editorial board of four research journals and referee of many national/ international journals and reviewer of project proposals of ICAR and other agencies. Prof. Dash has visited countries like Israel (under MASHAV fellowship), Germany (under DAAD fellowship), Netherlands (under NUFFIC fellowship), USA (under Indo-US AKI program and under NAIP) and Canada under different professional assignments. He has received many awards for his professional contributions, which include the Samanta Chandrasekhar Award (Govt. of Odisha) during 2018, Commendation medal from the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) during 2014, Best Teacher Award of OUAT during 2008, Distinguished Services Award from ISAE during 2006, as well as several awards for research papers/ presentations. He has been conferred with the Fellowships of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) and Institution of Engineers (I) and Professional Engineer status by the Engineering Council of India. Prof. Dash is a life member of many professional societies and has worked as the Director, Processing, Dairy and Food Engineering section of the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) during 2019-21.
The academic staff comprises experienced faculty from diverse fields. The high calibre of the staff comes across through the composition of the faculty consisting of professionally qualified individuals. The college extracts several visiting faculties from the industry, thus incorporating their practical experience into teaching.
The college believes that teaching is the art of simplifying knowledge and information without diluting it. In accordance with this ideology, the college has been effectively developing innovative teaching methods such as: