After spending more than 30 years at the Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation (RJMCEI), Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Vijaya Sherry Chand retired on May 31, 2023. Prior to joining the Institute in January 1993, he worked for eleven years in social development, planning and implementing a variety of developmental programs (non-formal education, agro-processing, animal husbandry, rural housing, forestry cooperatives, community health and legal rights of marginalized communities) for socio-economically marginalized dalit and tribal communities in India. His academic work at the RJMCEI was centred on teacher-driven workplace innovation, the consequences of innovative work performance of teachers for learning climate and children's motivation, and using teacher innovations for online professional development of teachers in the public system. The base for this work was provided by a project titled 'Educational Innovations Bank': Decentralized Professional Development and Quality Enhancement in Public Schooling (closed in March 2023) that developed a clearing house ('EI Bank') for the "innovations that improve" of teachers working in government elementary schools. The question the project asked was, "How do some teachers achieve their educational goals in spite of facing the same constraints as thousands of other teachers?" The EI Bank was used to develop a teacher innovation-based online professional development program (science, math, language and social studies, and school governance) for teachers and principals in the public system. The three-decade long experience is described in a book published in October 2022. (Chand, V.S., Kuril, S. & Deshmukh, K. (2022). Teacher Development in India: Building on Grassroots Innovations and Technology. London, New York & New Delhi: Routledge.)

His teaching interests included educational innovation, school leadership and teacher development, communication, research methodology, socio-cultural and socio-political contexts of business, the case method in management education and governance in education.

He was also involved extensively in institutional administration: he has been Chairman's nominee to IIMA Board, Dean (Alumni & External Relations), Editor of Vikalpa, IIMA's journal, and has chaired various entities like RJMCEI, Admissions, Financial Aid Committee, IIMA Archives, Faculty Development Programme, PGP-ABM, JSW School of Public Policy, Communication Advisory Committee, and the PGP-ABM and PGP Review Implementation Committees. He has also been a member of various committees including the Case Centre Executive Committee and the Computer Services Committee.

For more information on the research projects and publications please visit https://sites.google.com/iima.ac.in/prof-vijaya-sherry-chand/