Upasna Bhandari is an Assistant professor with the Textile Design department at NIFT Hyderabad. She teaches courses such as Textile printing, Dyeing, Traditional Textiles, Art and Design history, Design fundamentals, Aesthetics, and mentors Design projects. She holds a PhD in Design from IIT Hyderabad. Having completed Master in Textile Design from NID in 2012, she has worked in the industry and academia for 10 years with experience in handloom, power loom, carpets, craft research and trend research. She has participated in International textile exhibitions such as Hemtextil (Germany) and Evteks(Istanbul). Her research interests include design education, technology in design, crafts and sustainability. 

She has several publications in the area of Design education, green fashion and sustainability in national and international journals, including Scopus-indexed journals. Her joint publication received the best paper award at the ICoRD conference, IISC Bangalore. She continues to explore the integration of technology, craft and sustainability in development of new methods for design and its pedagogy.