Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi Chair (Open to faculty of any department who has done research and/or development in an area related to India's defense) Mr. Kamalesh Dwivedi Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi was a Sanskrit teacher and a Purohit at the village Kesath, which is approximately 20 miles southeast of Buxar in Bihar. He taught Sanskrit in the village middle school for thirty years starting in 1940's. During the Quit India Movement of 1942, launched by Mahatma Gandhi, he was kept in captivity by the British in the central jail at Buxar. He got out of the jail by teaching Sanskrit to the daughter of the British jailor. The chair was launched on August 15th, 2006 to commemorate the freedom fighting spirit of the late Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi and his lifetime contribution to Sanskrit education. The Chair is meant to encourage excellence in education in India by supporting a distinguished faculty member in any department of IIT Kanpur who has done research and/or development in an area related to India's defense. This endowment has been financially sponsored by Kamalesh Dwivedi, who graduated from the department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur in 1979, in the memory of his late father. Kamalesh holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He also graduated from the Harvard Business School's Program for Management Development. Currently he resides in Greenwood Village, Colorado, USA.

Past Occupant of Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi Chair

Professor C. Venkatesan Department of Aerospace Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208 016 E-mail: cven @iitk.ac.in Office: CL 202D Core Labs Phone: +91-512-2597284 Webpage: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~cven/

Professor C. Venkatesan obtained B.Sc (Physics) from Madras University in 1970 and M.Sc (Physics) from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1972. Subsequently, he joined Indian Institute Science, Bangalore as a research scholar and completed M.Sc (Engineering) and Ph.D (Engineering) in the years 1975 and 1980 respectively. During the period 1981 to 1993, Prof. Venkatesan worked as Assistant Research Engineer and later as Associate Research Engineer in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles, USA; and served as Senior Design Engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bangalore. Prof. Venkatesan joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Kanpur in December 1993 as an Associate Professor and became a Full Professor in 1999. Professor Venkatesan's main research interests are in the area of helicopter dynamics and aeroelasticity, and smart structure analysis. He has published more than 80 research articles in reputed international journals and conferences. He is credited with developing one of the most original and comprehensive analytical models for a coupled rotor/ flexible fuselage dynamic system to study its structural dynamic, aeroelastic and aeromechanical characteristics. He has developed a new time domain finite state model for helicopter rotor unsteady aerodynamics in hover, which resulted in the identification and formulation of a special rotary-wing indicial response function. His recent research on time domain modelling of unsteady aerodynamics has contributed to the understanding of dynamic stall problem in rotary-wing vehicles. Currently he is focusing his research efforts on: (1) aeroelastic response of helicopter rotor systems, (2) smart structure modelling and applications, and (3) a multi-disciplinary collaborative activity on the design and development of an autonomous mini helicopter with funding from the Department of Science and Technology India. Prof. Venkatesan initiated a new one-semester Certificate Program on Helicopter Technology at IIT Kanpur, to cater to the needs of industry and defence services. Professor Venkatesan has served as a technical consultant to DRDL, HAL and defence services. Currently Prof. Venkatesan is serving as Coordinator of Structures Panel of Aeronautics R&D Board under DRDO. He has been nominated by the Research Council of NAL to serve as a Member of its Divisional Scientific Committee. He is Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Aerospace Sciences and Technologies. Professor Venkatesan has received Dr. V.M. Ghatage award for the year 2001 by the Aeronautical Society of India, for his contributions to the field of Helicopter Dynamics and Aeroelasticity. He is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering.