Biography of Academic Staff

Arvinda Kumar Ragen is Senior Lecturer and PhD holder in the field of Environmental Engineering. He has 17 years of experience in lecturing and research in the field of environmental engineering and management with emphasis on wastewater engineering. He was twice the Head of the department of the Chemical & Environmental Engineering. He started his career as an Assistant Chemist in a sugar factory for 1 year and subsequently worked as Technical Officer for 11 years at the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute where he was involved in research and troubleshooting in sugar cane processing, auditing of sugar factory laboratories and water pollution control in sugar factories. He is also a Registered Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Consultant. His research interest in wastewater engineering is in the area of constructed wetland for treatment of household grey water. He holds an MSc in Environmental Engineering and a BSc (Hons.) in Sugar Technology.

Vikram Seebaluck is Senior Lecturer. He has 9 years of experience in lecturing and research in the field of renewable energy technologies with an emphasis on bioenergy for sustainable development. He was the Principal Researcher and Co-Leader for an EC-funded thematic research network ‘Cane Resources Network for Southern Africa (CARENSA)’ and has edited a book entitled ‘Bioenergy for Sustainable Development and International Competitiveness – The Role of Sugar Cane in Africa’ published in 2012. His research interests are in renewable energy, the sugar cane industry (electricity and ethanol production) and their linkages to sustainable development. He has a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering which focused on the study of cane bioenergy systems. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Dinesh Surroop is Associate Professor at the department. He has a first class degree in B.Eng Chemical and Environmental Engineering and a PhD degree in Environmental Engineering. He joined the University in August 2007 as Lecturer; he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in March 2012 and then promoted to Associate Professor in December 2020. He was the former Head of the department during the period 2014 - 2016. He was the Project Manager of the Small Developing Island Renewable Energy Knowledge and Technology Transfer Network (DIREKT) and the Project Coordinator of the Lifelong Learning on Energy Access, Security and Efficiency Project (L3EAP) project. He is also a Consultant in Industrial Waste and Energy systems with UN and World Bank. He was also a research scholar at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden under the SI scholarship. He was awarded the TEC scholarship to conduct his PhD. He is a member of the Energy Modelling Platform for Africa (EMP-A) and a member of the International Conference on Energy, Environment and Climate Change. His research interests are in waste to energy, energy access, energy security, climate change and circular economy in Small Island Developing States. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Pratima Jeetah is Senior Lecturer. She joined the University in August 2011 as Lecturer and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in March 2016. She has a PhD degree in Bioprocess Engineering. She has a Master degree in Sustainable Energy Engineering from the Sweden University of KTH. Her research interest is in waste management which particularly focusses on lignocellulosic waste conversion to bio-ethanol. She has worked on the EU funded project entitled Small Developing Island Renewable Energy Knowledge and Technology Transfer Network (DIREKT). She has a first class Bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Environmental Engineering and she is a gold medalist. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Geeta Devi Somaroo is Senior Lecturer. She has 9 years of experience in lecturing and research in the field of environmental and energy engineering. She has a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering which focused on the assessment of the degradability of plastic-carry bags in a composting environment and determination of environmental impacts using a life cycle approach. Dr Somaroo is involved in various national and international research projects in the field of composting, anaerobic digestion, waste characterization studies and life cycle analysis. She has also a number of research and conference papers in international journals such as Waste Management and Bioresource Technology. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Vimi Dookhun is a Senior Lecturer, holds a PhD in the field of environmental risk management and is a Commonwealth Scholar. She has 16 years of experience in lecturing and research . Her research interests are in the area of risk management, persistent toxic pollutants and environmental / energy engineering. She acted as rapporteur for the Energy Group in the multi-stakeholder meeting for the ‘Maurice Ile Durable’ project in 2011 and developed the ‘Baseline study, national country profile report on chemical wastes’, a project financed by the Swedish Government in 2007. Dr Dookhun has worked as national expert on the Mercury Inventory Assessment (MIA) project and the Greening of Tourism Industry in Mauritius financed by UNEP. She has a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering and acts as representative of the University of Mauritius on Standards Committees. Dr Dookhun is an associate member of the Mauritius Academy of Science and Technology (AMMAST) and member of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Ackmez Mudhoo holds a First Class B.Eng. (Hons.) degree in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree by research in Chemical Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Environmental Engineering, all from the University of Mauritius.  The M.Phil. thesis focused on the estimation of overall heat transfer coefficients developed in a composting system and the doctoral study addressed the mathematical modeling of carbon dioxide evolution and temperature distribution in an aerobic bioreactor landfill lysimeter unit.  His research interests span (i) bioremediation processes of organic residues and pollutant moieties, (ii) green chemistry approaches for enhanced biomass pretreatment for bioenergy production, (iii) adsorption, and (iv) the mathematical analysis and modeling of the related processes. He is presently Senior Lecturer in the department and counts over twelve years of experience in lecturing and research in the fields of chemical engineering and environmental engineering.  He also reckons two years’ full-time experience (2006-2008) as ‘Chemical Process Engineer’ in the design, operation and maintenance of a sewage treatment plant.  He was the Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee for MAURITIUS 2011 – 1st International Conference on Waste Management in Developing Countries and Transient Economies, 5–8 September 2011, CODWAP Conference under CODWAP Project Framework.  He has also been a TWAS Affiliate for the 2013-2017 Tenure, and served as Associate Editor for 'Environmental Chemistry Letters' (Springer). He serves as an Editorial Board Member of the journal ‘Discover Chemical Engineering’ (Springer Nature). He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  His ORCID ID is http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5712-6673