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Citations: 2006 Distinguished Alumnus Awards Recipients

Dr.Sundararajan:

Dr. Sundararajan is currently Director, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad. He earlier served as a scientist in the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderbad. He is a well know scientist in the field of Metallurgy and Material Science.

Dr. Sundararajan received B.Tech degree in Metallurgy from IIT Madras in 1976 and followed it up with a M.S. and Ph.D. from Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. His research contributions have been in the areas of tribiological behaviour of metallic materials, composites, ceramics and coatings; diffusion and thermal spray coatings; carbon coatings; laser cutting and welding. He has over 135 journals publications to his credit.

He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Indian Institute of Metals, Indian National Academy of Engineering and Indian Natural Science Academy. He has received a number of awards including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Engineering Sciences in 1994 and Best Metallurgist Award from Indian Institute of Metals in 1995.

He is a member of several expert committees. His research work has contributed to technology transfer to various companies.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Metallurgy and Material Science, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to present him this award.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of fundamental and applied Physics, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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Dr.Krithi Ramamritham:

Dr. Krithivasan Ramamritham is the Vijay and Sita Vashee Chair Professor of Computer Science at IIT Bombay and Head of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, IIT Bombay. Prior to joining IIT Bombay, he was a Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts.

Dr. Krithi Ramamritham received B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras in 1976 and M.Tech degree in Computer Science from IIT Madras in 1978. He followed it up with a Ph.D in Computer Science from University of Utah in 1981.

Dr. Krithi Ramamritham’s areas of research include database systems, real time systems and internet computing. He has over 65 journal papers and about 150 conference papers to his credit. He has authored and edited five books and has contributed chapters in over 25 others. He is on the editorial board of several journals.

Dr. Krithi Ramamritham is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM and Indian National Academy of Engineering. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Microsoft Research India, Tata Research and Development Centre, Very Large Databases Foundation and IIIT Hyderabad.

Dr. Krithi Ramamritham has played an active role in the distance education program at IIT Bombay. He is a founding member of aAQUA, a multilingual online question and answer forum to cater to the needs of farmers. This forum has been awarded the Manthan Award for India’s best e-content practices.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Computer Science, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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Dr.Murali Sastry:

Dr. Murali Sastry is currently Chief Scientist, Tata Chemicals Ltd., Mumbai. He had earlier served as a Senior Scientist at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune.

Dr. Murali Sastry received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from IIT Madras in 1982 and 1987 respectively. He was a Post-Doctoral fellow at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (1988-89) and at Sincrotrone Trieste, Italy (1989-91). He was a Visiting Faculty at University of Maryland (1998-99) and Visiting Scientist at CNRS, Orsay, France (2001-03).

Dr. Murali Sastry is the author of over 300 peer reviewed international publications and eight chapters in books. He is the Editor (Nanomaterials) of Materials Research Bulletin and is the member of editorial board of a number of journals. He has been granted five patents and has filed for another 13 patents.

Dr. Murali Sastry is the recipient of a number of awards including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences (2002), Materials Research Society of India Medal (2003), Chemical Research Society of India medal (2001), and CSIR Young Scientist award in Physical Sciences (1993). He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Maharastra Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Murali Sastry is an internationally recognized nanotechnologist with a rich background in different aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology. His work on interfacing nanomaterials with biologicals, development of new strategies for nanomaterials synthesis and assembly as well as fresh approach to bio-mineralization have won international acclaim.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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Dr.T.V.RajanBabu:

Dr. T. V. RajanBabu is currently a Professor of Chemistry at The Ohio State University. Earlier he was a member of the Research Staff and a Research Fellow at DuPont Central Research and Development Laboratory.

Dr. RajanBabu received his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from IIT Madras in 1971. Subsequently he received his Ph.D degree from The Ohio State University and then spent two years at Harvard University as post-doctoral Fellow with the Nobel Laureate Professor R. B. Woodward.

During his years at Dupont, Dr. RajanBabu was involved with a variety of projects dealing with applications of free-radical chemistry and of main-group and organometallic reagents in organic synthesis. Here, he co-discovered Group Transfer Polymerization, a technique that is used in the multimillion dollar desk-jet printer ink manufacturing industry. This concept also has found its way into textbooks on polymer science as one of the fundamental methodologies of polymerization. The work has received over 1000 citations, truly reflecting its high impact in this field of research.

For the past ten years, Dr. RajanBabu’s major research interests have been in area of asymmetric catalysis. Some of his seminal contributions in the area of C-C and C-H bond-forming reactions using simple feed-stocks like HCN, CO and/or simple olefins, have set the standard for catalytic synthesis of fine chemicals. Dr. RajanBabu has also developed a series of carbohydrate-based ligands for use in asymmetric catalysis, a simple but hitherto largely unrecognized possibility to exploit readily available sugar-coated metals for catalysis in organic and aqueous media. His other major interest is in the discovery of new protocols for the synthesis of densely functionalized carbocyclic and heterocyclic compounds from simple precursors.

He has over 80 original peer reviewed publications and 13 patents to his credit. He is a member of the editorial board of the Organic Reactions. He has delivered over 100 plenary and invited lectures.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Chemistry, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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Jai Shankar Menon:

Dr. Jai Menon is an IBM Fellow, and is currently Vice President, Technical Strategy and Vice-Chair, Board of Governors of IBM Academy of Technology. He received a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1977. He earned master’s and doctorate degrees in computer science from Ohio State University in 1978 and 1981, respectively.

Dr. Menon joined IBM Research in 1982 and has held various technical leadership and management positions in IBM such as CTO and VP of Architecture and Strategy for Software and Storage Systems, Chair of Architecture Board of IBM Systems Group, Senior Manager of Storage Systems research team, Co-Director of Storage Systems Institute, World wide Strategist for IBM Research in File Systems and Storage Systems, and Member of Corporate Technical Strategy Team.

Dr. Menon has made several contributions to the industry in RAID, cluster file systems, storage virtualization etc. He was instrumental in establishing IBM Research as a world-class center of competence in storage research. He started and was the technical visionary behind the SAN file System and SAN Volume Controller projects. He is well-known as a pioneer in RAID Research and is one of the key early contributors to the technology behind what is now a $20B industry.

Dr. Menon is recipient of many awards and honors notable among them being IBM Fellow (2001), IBM Master Inventor, Fellow of IEEE, IEEE Wallace McDowell Award and IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Storage Systems Award. He holds over 50 US Patents, is author of 31 refereed papers and contributing author of three books on database and storage systems.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Storage Systems and Computer Science in general, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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Sunil Kumar:

Mr. Sunil Kumar is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors of International Specialty Products Inc. (ISP), a manufacturer of speciality chemicals. Prior to coming to ISP, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of GAF Materials Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of roofing products for buildings. Earlier he was Executive Vice-President and a Member of the Board of Bridgestone/Firestone.

Mr. Sunil Kumar received B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras in 1971 and followed it up with a MBA from University of Louisiana.

Under the leadership of Mr. Sunil Kumar, ISP achieved sales of US $1.2 Billion in 2004 and highest profit margins in the industry. He was selected to be the 2005 Specialty Chemicals CEO of the Year by Frost & Sullivan, a distinguished international industry and market research firm.

Mr. Sunil Kumar is a Board Member of American Chemistry Council, an Executive Member of the Society of Chemical Industry and a Board Member of Societe de Chimie Industrielle. He is a Member of the Foreign Direct Investment Task Force formed by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

In recognition of Mr. Sunil Kumar’s professional accomplishments and managerial excellence, IIT Madras and its Alumni are proud to confer on him this award.

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