About
Dr. Manjula Devananda is an interdisciplinary AI researcher and academician with expertise in health informatics, machine learning, and explainable AI. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Otago, New Zealand, where her research focused on predictive workload modelling in primary healthcare.
With a strong background in both academia and industry, she has served as Senior Manager – AI Research at Fusemachines (USA), Health Data Scientist in New Zealand, and Principal/Academic Director at KVM Institutions, India. Her teaching experience spans institutions in India, New Zealand, and Canada.
Dr. Manjula has delivered numerous keynote talks, served on technical committees, and received several prestigious fellowships including the Otago Doctoral Scholarship and Callaghan Innovation Grant. Her research contributions are published in reputed international journals and conferences. She is passionate about AI education, research mentorship, and developing impactful, ethical AI systems across disciplines.
Research Areas
13Research Guidance
- An XAI Approach to Veterinary Prescription Analysis
- A Bloom’s Taxonomy Based Question Classification System Using Doc2Vec
- A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Student Self-improvement for Placement Assessment and Learning
- Proactive identity-based Watermarking for Deepfake Detection and photo authentication (Ongoing)
- VIGOR: Visual Interaction Graph for Optimising Prescriptions (Ongoing)
Research Interest
- Explainable AI
- Predictive Analytics
- Federated Learning
- Health Informatics
- NLP
Research Projects
- An Adaptable Long-term Condition Workload Prediction Model for Primary Health Care: Funded by University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship;
- Design and Develop predictive machine learning models to help reducing polypharmacy rates in New Zealand: Funded by Callaghan Innovation Early Career Researcher Grant (NZ MBIE)
- Design of an Online Community for Sharing Oral Stories: Funded by CBIE on behalf of DFAIT, Canada
Publications
7Books
- Translated "Python Programming" Book by Dr. Rupesh Nasre into Malayalam and is published by AICTE e-Kumbh portal.
- Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Licorish, S. A., Devananda, M., Greenheld, G., Dignum, V., & Dignum, F. (2017, May). Developers’ responses to app review feedback–a study of communication norms in app development. In International Workshop on Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms, and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 57-75). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Conferences
- Devananda, M., Cranefield, S., Winikoff, M., & Lloyd, H. (2017). "Workload prediction model of a primary health centre.", ECIS
- Midhun M, Manjula Devananda, (2022), "Veterinary Medication Prescription Analysis: A Machine Learning Approach" , International Conference on Computing, Communication, Security & Intelligent Systems
- Manjula Devananda, Stephen Cranefield, Hywel Lloyd, Michael Winikoff, (2017) "Patient Information Model to Support Population-level Workload Analysis", ACIS 2017 Proceedings. https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2017/15
Journals
- J Nind, A Smith, M Devananda, B Auvray, "A whole of population retrospective observational study on the rates of polypharmacy in New Zealand 2014 to 2018 Polypharmacy in New Zealand: What is the current status?", Health science reports 4 (2), e263
Others
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7007-1603
Teaching
6Education
3-
PhDUniversity of Otago2018
-
M E CSEKarunya University, Coimbatore2009
-
B Tech CSECUSAT, Kerala2006
Experience
11-
Associate Professor, CSE (AI&ML)PES University, Banagalore2025 – 2026
-
Senior Manager, AI Research ScientistFusemachines, USA2023 – 2025
-
Academic Director & PrincipalKVM Group of Institutions, Kerala2020 – 2023
-
Assistant ProfessorMuthoot Institute of Technology and Science, Kerala2020 – 2020
-
Health Data ScientistAirmed, Ltd, Dunedin, New Zealand2019 – 2020
-
Tutor/Demonstrator/Technical Support SpecialistUniversity of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand2015 – 2018
-
Assistant Professor, HOD i/c CSEKVM College of Engineering & IT, Kerala2012 – 2014
-
Project EngineerWipro Technologies Pvt. Ltd.2010 – 2012
-
LecturerMET’S School of Engineering, Kerala2009 – 2010
-
Graduate Research FellowUniversity of Saskatchewan, Canada2009 – 2009
-
LecturerAdi Shankara Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kerala2006 – 2007
Responsibilities
2- Events Coordinator
- Coordinator of AI 360: Unmasking AI for Society, and official India AI Impact Pre-Summit event in affiliation with India AI Mission and MEITy
Additional Info
1Other Achievements:
1. Recipient of Callaghan Innovation early career research grant 2019. [New Zealand National level];
2. Runner-up at Otago Institute Travel award competition second round 2017; [University level];
3. Runner-up at 3-Minute Thesis competition BARC Otago 2015; [University level];
4. Recipient (one among 17 around the globe) of GSEP Fellowship by the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) on behalf of the DFAIT Canada 2008 [international level];
5. Recipient of Doctoral Scholarship at University of Otago [University level];
6. Gold Medalist and First Rank Holder for M.E at Karunya University[University level];
7. First Rank Holder for M.E CSE SEM 1 Examination;
8. Second Rank Holder for M E CSE Sem2 Examination;
Campus
RR Campus