Uthaman Mangalathu Kochuraman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessories at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Hyderabad, where he has been a permanent faculty member since 2008. He holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of Hyderabad. His teaching areas include Sketching and Rendering, Form Studies, Design Process, History and Philosophy of Design, and Foundation Courses in Design. He has also contributed to various academic programmes and initiatives at NIFT.

His research focuses on the decolonisation of fashion and clothing culture, particularly the persistent Eurocentric and ethnocentric assumptions embedded in dominant fashion discourses. His work seeks to develop alternative narratives while critically engaging with discrimination, exclusion, unequal global power relations shaped by the modern colonial order, human experience, and cultural heritage.

His broader academic interests encompass Art, Design, and Cinema, with particular attention to their intersections with culture, history, identity, and representation. He has published his research in various ISSN- indexed academic publications, including publications associated with Bunka Gakuen University, Tokyo. He is currently pursuing his PhD in the Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Cinema, fashion, clothing, and visual culture.