Aparna Harichandran is an interdisciplinary researcher who works on computing applications in Civil Engineering. The current focus of her research is implementing digital twins for construction safety. Her area of specialization involves extended reality (XR), automated construction, artificial intelligence (AI), construction informatics, structural sensing and construction monitoring.
Aparna started her career as a Civil Engineer at Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Limited, where she worked at the forefront of planning and execution of multiple high-rise building projects. Aparna completed her master’s degree in structural engineering with exemplar academic achievements, including first rank and best research project award. She briefly worked as Post Graduate Engineering Consultant at L&T Infrastructure Engineering Ltd in analysing and designing steel railway bridges.
Aparna developed an automated construction monitoring framework based on machine learning through her doctoral research. The data-driven framework can identify activities and anomalies during construction operations. She developed full-scale Automated Construction System prototypes and validated the monitoring framework. She was awarded a doctoral degree from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India and Curtin University, Australia. Currently, Aparna works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Aarhus University. She develops virtual reality (VR) serious games for construction Digital Twin systems.
