Ganesh Bagler

Ganesh Bagler is known for his research in computational gastronomy, an emerging data science of food, flavors and health. By blending food with data and computation he has helped establish the foundations of this niche area. Starting with the investigation of food pairing in the Indian cuisine, his lab has contributed to computational gastronomy with studies on culinary fingerprints of world cuisines, culinary evolution, benevolent health impacts of spices, and taste prediction algorithms.
Ganesh Bagler was born and raised in Solapur, Maharashtra, where he completed his schooling at Sharada School and Siddheshwar High School,Solapur in the western peninsular Indian state of Maharashtra. He pursued a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Physics from Sangameshwar College, affiliated with Shivaji University, graduating in 1997. Bagler continued his academic journey at the University of Hyderabad, earning a Master of Technology (M.Tech.) in Computational Techniques. He later joined the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) for his doctoral studies, where his Ph.D. research focused on the application of graph theoretical models to protein structures. His work contributed to the understanding of assortative mixing in these models, a key observation in the field of Computational Biology. Bagler's diverse academic background laid the foundation for his pioneering work in Computational Gastronomy.
Ganesh Bagler's career blends academic research, teaching, and pioneering efforts in Computational Gastronomy. After earning his Ph.D. from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, where he focused on graph theoretical models of protein structures, Bagler completed postdoctoral research in computational neuroscience at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. He then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Prof. Michael Lappe's (Otto Warburg Laboratory, Bioinformatics/Structural Proteomics) group in Germany on bioinformatics and structural proteomics. Returning to India, Bagler joined the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology as a scientist before moving to the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur as an assistant professor and later the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology. He eventually joined Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Delhi), where he holds a tenure-track position. There, he is affiliated to the Center for Computational Biology and Department of Computational Biology and has been developing the Computational Gastronomy niche in his lab, the Complex Systems Laboratory.
Ganesh Bagler's research has been rooted in investigation of complex systems, primarily of biological origin: protein structure-function, kinetics, folding, and design; complex network models transportation systems; molecular interactome models of complex diseases; controllability of biological networks; in silico drug discovery;systems biological investigation of brain networks; modeling and prediction of phenotypic side effects of drugs; computational models of biological systems; and computational gastronomy.
Ganesh Bagler has keen interest in STEM (sience, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and public outreach for communicating science. He has been engaged in propagating the cause of leveraging computational gastronomy for data-driven food innovations on various platforms: TEDx; HasGeek's Kilter 2017; Discussion Meeting on Mathematical and Statistical Explorations in Disease Modeling and Public Health at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences; 7th IFCA International Chefs Congress; IIT Guwahati Research Conclave 2017; GD Goenka University Le Cordon Bleu India's iHOST 2017; Cadence Advanced Technology Talk; 2nd International Meeting on Systems Medicine (Utrecht, Netherlands); Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's (FSSAI) EatRight Mela; Bangalore Science Forum; and SIAL Paris Conference 2019. He has organized five editions of Computational Gastronomy Symposiums at IIIT-Delhi. He conducts the 'Open Computational Gastronomy' course on Google Classroom
In April 2015, soon after his research reporting the food pairing investigation of Indian cuisine was touted as an emerging technology by the MIT Technology Review, Bagler was unceremoniously removed from the position of assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur in a controversial decision. The students protested against the decision of termination. Ministry of Human Resource Development constituted a three-member committee for the investigation of the matter. Subsequently, Bagler moved to Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology on a tenure track position and has graduated his PhD students from Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur. He has been tenured and promoted to the position of Professor at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology.