Smt Amba & Sri V S Sastry Distinguished Visiting Chair was established at the institute today to promote institutional excellence. Under this Chair, every year, an active distinguished academic of international stature from the field of science, engineering or humanities will be invited to spend at least a month at IITGN for lectures, interactions and research collaborations. With creation of this new Chair, IITGN will be able to further strengthen its Scholar-in-Residence programme to bring distinguished visitors from India and abroad to add significant value to the institute.
Prof Amrutur Anilkumar, an aerospace engineer and a faculty member at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA has established this Chair in the honour of his parents, Smt Amba and Sri V S Sastri.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Prof Amrutur Anilkumar recalled how two institutions have had a tremendous impact on him, the first being the high school he studied in – National High School, Bengaluru founded by Dr Annie Besant – and the second being IITGN. He emphasised the concept of finding light at the end of the tunnel through science and technology, and gave an example of some blind men touching the elephant to explain that there can be different problems for different people but we must act to come out of the self-imposed blindness and see the reality.
Professor Anilkumar said, “We need to come out of our blindness to see the reality. The sooner we come out of it the better.” He then recalled his eight-year-long association with IITGN by supporting the Roddam Narsimha distinguished lecture series.
Speaking at the function, Prof Amit Prashant, Officiating Director, IITGN thanked Professor Anilkumar and his family for their continuous support for the Roddam Narsimha distinguished lecture series and for establishing Smt Amba & Sri V S Sastry Distinguished Visiting Chair.
IITGN has an outward-looking policy to interact with people from outside the Institute, bring them here, learn from them and build collaborations. Such a chair becomes engine for the vision that IITGN aspires to establish.
Prof Amit Prashant
About Prof Amrutur Anilkumar
Prof Amrutur Anilkumar has worked as a NASA investigator of microgravity fluid flow phenomenon on space shuttle flights and on the International Space Station. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from IIT Madras and a masters and PhD in mechanical engineering and aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. Dr Anilkumar has won several educational awards from NASA, AIAA and Vanderbilt University.
