On 31 July 2020, Prof. Anurag Kumar will superannuate from his service at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and thereby complete his term as the Director of the Institute. Prof. Govindan Rangarajan has been formally appointed by the Governing Council of the Institute as the next Director of IISc with effect from 1 August 2020, after obtaining approval from the Visitor, the Honourable President of India.
Prof. Rangarajan obtained an Integrated M.Sc. (Hons.) degree from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, and a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He then worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, USA, before returning to India in 1992. Prior to his current appointment, Prof. Rangarajan was the Chair, Division of Interdisciplinary Research at IISc comprising 10 departments and centres. He also headed the fundraising and alumni outreach efforts of the Institute. Prof. Rangarajan has also served as the Chair, Department of Mathematics and the Chair, International Relations Cell.
“It is an honour and privilege for me to be appointed as the next Director of IISc,” says Prof. Rangarajan. “The Institute has a glorious 111-year-old legacy of impactful contributions to science and engineering. I will strive to uphold this tradition and take the Institute to even greater heights in the coming years.”
The outgoing Director, Prof. Anurag Kumar, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur and a PhD from Cornell University, and then worked at Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA, before joining IISc in 1988. After serving as the Chair, Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, and later the Chair, Division of Electrical Sciences, he was appointed the Director of the Institute on 1 August 2014. During his tenure as the Director, he introduced initiatives to modernise IISc’s administration and infrastructure, improve faculty recruitment, increase support from non-government sources, enable the careers of women researchers in the Institute, and enhance IISc’s visibility abroad. In 2018, IISc was also selected as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). As the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Kumar has also had the responsibility of steering the Institute through this challenging period.
“It has been an honour for me to serve as the Director of IISc, India’s top ranked university of science and engineering,” says Prof. Kumar. “I congratulate Prof. Govindan Rangarajan on being appointed as the next Director of IISc, and wish him all success in taking this unique institution to the next level.”
