February 2023
KNOWLEDGE TREE - IMPACTFUL STORIES FROM IIT BOMBAY
Dear Alumnus,
Warm greetings from the verdant green campus of IIT Bombay. I hope you are having a wonderful new year so far.
IIT Bombay celebrated India’s glorious history and the diverse and rich cultural heritage of our beautiful nation during the 74th Republic Day celebrations held on January 26, 2023, on campus. Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay, unfurled the Indian National Flag at the Institute’s Gymkhana ground on this very august occasion.
The Institute announced the Distinguished Alumni Awards (DAA) and the Young Alumni Achiever Awards (YAAA) for 2022. My hearty congratulations to all the recipients of these prestigious awards. Please look for the details of the awardees in the News section of the newsletter.
GIVING
Do you remember…?
…the swagger with which you told your extended family and friends that you were a student of IIT Bombay?
Or the transformative world-class education and mentorship from professors that you received?
What about your hostel mates and batchmates that you met and made lifelong connections and friendships with? Remember sneaking in a hotplate and making hot masala chai and Maggi inside your hostel room? Shhh! Don’t worry! Your secret is safe with us!
FACULTY INTERVIEW
Prof. Parag Bhargava is a Professor, Metallurgical Engineering and Material Science, at IIT Bombay. Apart from his stellar career working with powders, he is also deeply passionate about children’s causes and giving back to his country. We are delighted to speak to him for the Dean ACR Newsletter – Knowledge Tree.
Prof. Bhargava, thank you for speaking to us today. To begin with – can you quickly take us through your academic and career trajectory?
It all sort of started at IIT Bombay. I did my undergraduate here at IIT Bombay from 1987 to 1991 in Metallurgical Engineering. And, I’m now back in the same Department! I completed my Master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. From there I went to Rutgers University in New Jersey for my postdoctoral work.
DONOR INSTITUTED CHAIR PROFESSORSHIPS
Research Spotlight of the Month
Image: Set up of the experiment (Credit: Prof. Kasturi Saha)
Exploiting quantum defects in diamond to image fast-changing weak magnetic fields
The following article was originally written for the IIT Bombay website by Ms. Kshitija Kelkar: (https://www.iitb.ac.in/en/research-highlight/using-diamonds-probes-to-explore-fast-changing-weak-magnetic-fields ).
The motion picture has evolved phenomenally over decades, giving us a more real-to-life video grab than the choppy and blurry video which we all have grown up watching. This evolution in practice is due to the advancement of imaging technologies over the years, beginning with modest ~16 frames per second (FPS) video by the 18th century Lumiere brothers to the immersive gaming environments with ~150 FPS.
Student Success Stories
The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle team from IIT Bombay overcame several hurdles including lack of funding and lack of awareness of the technology by adopting the very Indianised ‘Jugaad’ system to forge ahead. And move ahead they did. In the recent Robosub 2022 competition, IITB’s AUV team placed seven from a total of 39 participants.
We are delighted to speak with Sidharth Mundra, who is in his fourth year, Mechanical Engineering Department, and is the current leader of the AUV team.
Hi Sidharth! Congratulations to you and your team’s success in Robosub 2022! Tell us a bit more about the competition and how does it feel to have placed so high in this competition?
SPECIAL REPORT
ALUMNI NEWS
INSTITUTE HIGHLIGHTS
Upcoming Events
Institute Lecture on "Flow Physics and Computation at the Intersection of Mechanics and Bioengineering"
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay is organizing an Institute lecture in February 2023.
Title: “Flow Physics and Computation at the Intersection of Mechanics and Bioengineering”
Speaker: Professor Rajat Mittal, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
Prof. Mittal has done pioneering work in the development of computational methods for fluid dynamics, in particular, immersed boundary methods, and applications of these methods in several interdisciplinary fields. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a recipient of several notable awards such as ASME Freeman Scholar in 2021.
- Day & Date: Monday, February 13, 2023
- Time: TBA
- Venue: IIT Bombay Campus
Interim Session of 61st Convocation
Interim Convocation Day is one of IIT Bombay’s most prestigious and eagerly awaited annual events. The ceremony is held for students who receive their graduate degrees before the main Convocation Day, basis their requirement to pursue advanced degrees and/or find jobs elsewhere.
- Day & Date: Saturday, February 25, 2023
- Time: 3:00 pm onwards
- Venue: IIT Bombay Campus
The Knowledge Tree – Dean ACR Newsletter February 2023
Chief Content Consultant and Editor (IITB DRF) – Roopa Swaminathan
Contributor:
Rachit Merani – B.S. – 3rd Year (Economics)