Pradeep Sindhu establishes A Chair Professorship at IIT Kanpur Dr. Pradeep Sindhu Dr. Pradeep Sindhu (BT/EE/1974), a distinguished alumnus of the Institute, has donated a substantial amount to establish a chair professorship. The wish of the donor is to honour and reward an outstanding faculty member of the Institute on a continual basis. Dr. Pradeep Sindhu is the Founder, Vice Chairman, and Chief Technology Officer of Juniper Networks, and is a winner of the Distinguished Alumnus Award (2001) from IIT Kanpur. In the words of legendary venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Sindhu is "tech's biggest unsung hero". After completing B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1974, Dr. Sindhu obtained his M.S. from University of Hawaii and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Past Occupant of Pradeep Sindhu Chair

 

Professor Y. N. Mohapatra Department of Physics Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur Kanpur - 208016, India Office: CL 202D Core Labs Phone: +91-512-2597259 E-mail: ynm@iitk.ac.in Web: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ynm/

Professor Y. N. Mohapatra was born in 1958 in Bhadrak, Orissa. He studied in Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar, a residential private school in the state of Jharkhand. He was awarded National Science Talent Search (NSTS) scholarship of Govt. of India in 1977 and chose Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani to complete his Five Year Integrated M.Sc.(Hons.) in Physics. He obtained his doctoral degree from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and carried on his post-doctoral work there before joining IIT Kanpur in May, 1990 with a joint appointment in the Department of Physics and Materials Science Programme. According to him, what brought him to IIT Kanpur was his quest for striking a balance between teaching and research, between physics and engineering, and between academic independence and avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration. Professor Mohapatra's major research interests are in physics of problems connected with development, characterization and applications of electronic and optoelectronic materials , specifically in inorganic and organic semiconductors. His group has contributed to the understanding of localized electronic states in semiconductors for optoelectronic applications through defect engineering. He has specially developed time domain electrical spectroscopies and related techniques to study a variety of systems such as III-V semiconductors, MeV ion modified silicon, nanocrystallites embedded in amorphous silicon, and ferroelectric thin films. Currently his group is engaged in studying optoelectronic properties of polymers and organic semiconductors with a view to understand and engineer their suitability for display, photovoltaic and large area electronic applications. He is also associated with technology development of organic semiconductors as a part of interdisciplinary group at Samtel Centre for Display Technologies at IIT Kanpur, and has been active in efforts of the group to make industry-academia interaction more meaningful. In his teaching, Professor Mohapatra lays special emphasis on making physics more interesting and useful for engineering and interdisciplinary students. The main theme of new courses developed by him, such as ‘Semiconductor Nanostructures' and ‘Electronic Materials', has centered around physics induced materials technologies. He feels strongly against the neglect of experiment in science and engineering education, and takes delight in laboratory development at all levels of professional education. He is a member of Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, Semiconductor Society of India. Professor Mohapatra has conducted several one day tutorials on electrical characterization of advanced materials at International MRS Conferences. He has been a visiting faculty at the Pennsylvania State University, and has collaborative research interests with Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State .