Month: August 2021

Prof. Ajit Pandurang Rangnekar is the Dean of  the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. Prof. Rangnekar has an impressive career spanning over 30 years in Consulting and Industry across different countries in Asia. He has been a Partner and Country Head at Price Waterhouse Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Hong Kong. nnPrior to his appointment as the Dean in January 2009, he was the Deputy Dean of the ISB. His contributions in helping build a world class business school in India is his way of giving back to the society. He is also credited for building a national level cement distribution model, for the first time in India.

Dr. Vijaya Korwar Gallagher works as a Technical Director, Advanced Systems at Space Systems Loral, LLC in Palo Alto, California, United States. She is responsible for developing and managing proposals for commercial satellite operators, worldwide. The range covers geostationary as well as non-geostationary telecommunications satellite. In a career spanning over 30 years, she has held key technical leadership roles in the satellite and wireless communications industry. Her contributions to organizations like Globalstar, Ford Aerospace and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have been widely appreciated.n

Professor Shantikumar Nair is the Dean of Research at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and the Director of Amrita Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine.nnProf. Nair, obtained his B.Tech. degree in Metallurgical Engineering from  IIT Bombay in 1976, and his Master of Science and Doctor of Engineering Science in  Materials Science and Engineering, from Columbia University, New York, USA, in 1978 and 1983 respectively.

Professor Moses Charikar works as a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. Prior to joining Stanford, he had spent a year in the research group at Google, and was on the Computer Science faculty at Princeton University.

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Professor Charikar completed his B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1995. He earned his doctorate in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2000.

Professor Madan Rao is a Senior Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore.  Prof. Rao began his association with NCBS in December 1999, when he joined the Raman Research Institute as an Associate Professor.  He has worked on a variety of projects involving the physics of active, evolving systems across scales – from biomolecules and sub-cellular structures to cells and tissues. His forte lies in the theoretical approaches he takes to understand the physical and chemical principles underlying biological organisation.  Prof. Rao was the founding member of the Theory group, currently the Simon’s Centre for the Study of Living Machines at NCBS, where he has been instrumental in mentoring younger colleagues and advising students in theoretical approaches to studying biological phenomena.nn 

Mr. Mohan Kavrie graduated from IIT Bombay in 1971 and thereafter went to USA to obtain a M.S. in Operations Research. He however was clear about making a career and life only in India and returned immediately after completing his M.S., in 1973, without working a single day in the U.S.

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Hailing from a middle-class non-business family and community, he took up a job as a junior officer in a medium sized Company in Mumbai. He worked his way to the top of the organisation in a very short time. However, this Company started sliding in the early eighties and was on the verge of closure by 1986.

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The options before Mr. Kavrie were to take up another job or start his own business. Not desiring to once again have to work his way up in a new organisation, he chose to start his own business. He had during his employment come to realise the potential of Nonwoven fabrics and decided to venture into this area.

Dr. Rangarajan Pitchumani is the George R. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, USA. Dr. Pitchumani received his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992 and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the IIT Bombay in 1986.nnPrior to joining Virginia Tech, he was with the University of Delaware and the University of Connecticut. Dr. Pitchumani served as the Director of Graduate Studies and as the Department Head at the University of Connecticut and as the Associate Department Head for Research at Virginia Tech. From 2011–2015, he served in an invitational role as the Chief Scientist for the SunShot Initiative  at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where he was the Founding Director of the SunShot Concentrating Solar Power program and the Director of the Systems Integration program. In his role at the DOE, he defined bold national goals for achieving cost-competitive solar energy technologies and their ubiquitous integration into the electric grid.

Dr. Krishna Chivukula graduated with Honours as a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Bombay in 1968.  He earned his M.Tech. in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Madras in 1970 and MBA from Harvard Business School in Boston, USA in 1980.

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After graduating from IIT Bombay in 1975, Dr. Kanakia, earned his Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, both in USA.nn 

Dr. Girish Deodhare is Associate Program Director, New Programs and Systems Engineering and Technology Director, Integrated Flight Control Systems, at the Aeronautical Development Agency in Bangalore. He graduated with B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering and M.Tech. Degree in Control and Instrumentation, from IIT Bombay in 1984 and 1986 respectively.  He earned his PhD in Control Theory from the University of Waterloo in Canada, in 1990.nn