Dr. Purushottam Kashinath Kelakar (1909-1990) is best remembered as the founding director of IIT Kanpur, established in 1959. Born in Karnataka, he graduated in Physics from the Royal Institute of Science, Mumbai in 1931 and later obtained his Diploma in Electrical Engineering in 1934 from IISC, Bangalore. Pursuing his passion for studies, Dr. Kelakar earned his doctorate from the University of Liverpool under the guidance of Dr. J.C. Prescott. His association with IITs began in 1956 when he was appointed as the Planning Officer of IIT Bombay and later became its Deputy Director. In 1959 December, Dr. Kelkar was appointed as the first Director of IIT Kanpur. His vision was to establish an institute incorporating engineering curriculum based on science, humanities and social sciences, with faculty engaged in teaching and research. Dr. Kelkar was instrumental in forming a collaborative program between IITK and a consortium of nine American universities called the Kanpur Indo-American Program (KIAP) that played an important role in the development of the Institute. He was appointed as the Director of IIT Bombay in 1970 where he brought in many key changes that led to the growth and expansion of the Institute. To honor his immense contribution in the field of technical education, the Government of India honored him with Padma Bhushan in 1969.
Dr. Indra Sen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at IIT Kanpur. His research investigates the application of isotope geochemistry in a wide variety of geological, environmental and hydrocarbon samples to better understand large-scale Earth System Science processes.Dr. Sen has received several national recognitions namely the 2020 young scientist award from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, 2016 young scientist award from the Ministry of Mines, and INSPIRE Faculty Awards. He obtained his PhD degree from Florida International University, and later he received the highly coveted postdoctoral fellowship award from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), USA .
Dr. Gannavarpu Rajshekar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. His research interests include Quantitative Phase Imaging, Optical Metrology, Applied Signal Processing, Fringe Analysis, Biophotonics. . He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships such as Early Career Research Award from Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) India, Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and IIT Kanpur Academic Excellence Award. He did his PhD in Photonics from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Subsequently, he conducted postdoctoral research at Beckman Institute in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
