Dr. Rajesh Nair is the Director of the Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences at Amity University Gurgaon. He holds a PhD in Health Psychology, and Master's with specialization in Clinical and Abnormal Psychology; Psychological, and postgraduate qualifications in Health and Family Welfare, Human Resource Management, Labour Laws, and Personnel Management. Moreover, he has also received training in Public Health at the Institute of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, U.K.

Dr. Nair has over two dozen publications on public health in leading peer-reviewed and indexed journals and magazines. With over 24 years of work experience, he has worked in public health practise, research, teaching, and training. Besides Amity University, he has also worked at the Indian Institute of Public Health in Gandhinagar and the Indian Institute of Public Health Delhi among others. Currently, he is also working as a Consultant under AADARSH project funded by BMGF and supported by MoHFW, GoI and eight state governments to strengthen the capacity of Indian Health Systems.

Dr. Nair has received the Australian Leadership Award Fellowship from 2012 to 2013, State Trading Corporation Fellow in the same year and the PHPI Welcome Trust Fellow in 2009 to 2010.

Amity University Gurgaon

Being the Director of AIBAS, How you ensure student has holistic exposure not just academics?

At Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences (AIBAS), the focused effort of all faculty and staff remains to provide students with unconditional support for building their competencies, values, and attitudes towards sustainable human development. Opportunities are provided to cultivate healthy competition among students, enriching their industrial experience through supervised internships, field practicums, scientific research papers, and dissertations both in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and fostering overall growth to become an excellent professional and good human being.

Apart from developing competencies around subject knowledge and practical experiences, students are provided with adequate handholding focusing on soft skills aspects such as communication skills, understanding of another foreign language, resume building, mock interviews, behavioural sciences to significantly improve their social and professional functioning.

How do you try to bring in practical approach towards subjects and how students get practical experience from studying the subject? 

Psychology and social work, being practical subjects, is supported by scientific methodology and evidence. Opportunities are provided to the students to undergo supervised clinical practicum in the field and supervised internships throughout the academic programme cycle. Ample opportunities are provided to the students to generate creative ideas, innovative projects, and models focusing on the needs to be addressed in a fast-changing world. Students are highly encouraged to participate in both academic and non-academic being held at AUH and outside the university campus for greater exposure and holistic and resilient personality development for effectively working in a global work environment.

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What are the best practices offered by the department to the students which help them gain necessary skills?

Some of the best practices being offered at AIBAS and AUH are our supervised clinical practicum, compulsory summer internship, and learning to do clinical assessments/ psycho-diagnostics using psychometric tools. We also have supervised psychotherapy and counselling training. Students also go through dissertation writing in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, while scientific research paper writing in postgraduate programme. There is clinical work with children, adults, the geriatric population on mental health issues, and assessment of cases with psychiatric and/or neurological problems. There are also research methodologies, and applications of statistical tools, statistical inference and presentations in the journal club.

How do you help your student to cope up with the competition being so high in the outside world?

Combined efforts are made to make students industry ready by building their competencies and practical experiences. Across the academic semesters, students are provided with skillsets to keep pace with the changing work environment and industrial needs. Both hard and soft skills requirements of students are addressed by capable interdisciplinary faculty, industrial experts and think tanks in the area of social and behavioural sciences. Regular changes in syllabus and pedagogy help students remain competitive as per the requirements of the outside world. 

What do you see the department’s/ college’s greatest strengths and how it helping students to excel?

The biggest strength of AIBAS is its mix of students from numerous states in India and abroad. Our students come from different socio-cultural backgrounds. There are more than twenty full-time faculty at both Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences (AIBAS) and Amity Institute of Clinical Psychology (AICP) implementing RCI and UGC-affiliated undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD academic programmes. The institutes have state of art psychology laboratories and library facilities. 95% of the faculty pool have PhD and M.Phil in Clinical Psychology qualifications. Students also have the opportunity to take part in our study abroad programme, three continent programmes in the world’s best universities. AIBAS provides an enabling environment for students to grow as professionals.

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What valuable advice would you like to the students for them to have a prosperous career ahead?

Stay focused and keep on maintaining a path towards your career goal. Upskilling is the mantra for success; hence, identify your interests and weak areas and undergo training and capacity-building programmes to compete with others. There are only levels and endless pursuits, so don’t stop reaching out for newer and better skills. And don’t leave until you master the skill.