Endowed Visiting Chair

IISc has a number of distinguished visiting chair positions to facilitate short-term visits by accomplished researchers in various disciplines. The Chairs provide for airfare, local hospitality, and an honorarium. The recipients of the Chair positions participate in various academic and research activities and interact with faculty and students in IISc. On-campus accommodation for a visitor is provided, subject to availability, in IISc’s Centenary Visitor’s House (CVH), which has well-furnished apartments suitable for comfortable living with a small family. An academic department in IISc will serve as a host to the Visitor to coordinate the academic and research activities.

The Chair positions are described below along with a list of previous recipients.

ADITYA BIRLA CHAIR

This Chair was instituted in 2001 with an endowment by the Indian Aluminium Company-Kolkata.  The Chair would be offered to an eminent Scientist/Researcher/Technologist of international recognition/reputation from within the country or abroad.  The researcher occupying this chair is expected to interact with Aluminium industries in India to promote Industry-Institute interaction and promote relevant research at the Institute relating to Aluminium.

Prof. H K D H Bhadeshia, University of Cambridge, UK, 2003
Prof. T Debroy, The Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2003
Prof. Rishi Raj, University of Colarado, USA, 2004, 2005-06
Prof. John Pethica, University of Dublin, Ireland, 2005
Prof. Vaughan R Voller, University of Minnesota, USA, 2006
Prof. Amiya K Mukherjee, University of California, USA, 2006-07
Prof. Guruswami Ravichandran, California Institute of Technology, USA, 2006-07
Prof. Lalit Anand, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, 2012
Prof. K Ravi Chandar, University of Texas, USA, 2014
Prof. Laszlo Toth, Universite de Lorraine, Ile du Saulcy, France, 2017
Prof. S. Chandrasekar, Purdue University, USA, 2018
Prof. Christian Friedrich Martin Heilmaier, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Germany 2022

ALUMNI CHAIR

This Visiting Chair, instituted in 2001, through an endowment from the IISc Alumni association is open to the Alumni of the Institute who are working in reputed institutions in India and abroad and is for a  duration of up to three months.

Dr. R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, New Delhi, 2004

BRAHM PRAKASH CHAIR

Prof. Brahm Prakash Chair  Was instituted during 1989 with an endowment created in the memory of late Prof. Brahm Prakash, who served as the Chair of the Department of Metallurgy at the Institute and also made major contributions to India’s atomic energy and space programmes.

Prof. T R Anantharaman, National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, 1999-2000
Prof. R R Tummala, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA, 2000-01
Prof. Brij M Moudgil, University of Florida, USA, 2001-02
Prof. Subhash Chander, The Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2002-03
Prof. Subra Suresh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, 2003-04
Prof. R Ramesh, University of Califronia, USA, 2005-06
Prof. Subhash Mahajan, Arizona State University, USA, 2006-07
Prof. Ing. Gunther Eggeler, Universitat Bochum, Bochum, Germany, 2009
Prof. S Chandrasekar, Purdue University, USA, 2010
Prof. Tanguy Rouxel, University of Rennes, France, 2010
Prof. Antony David Rollett, Carnegie Mellon Univerity, USA, 2011-12
Prof. Lars E Arnberg, Norwegian University,Norway, 2012
Prof. John Banhart, Institute ofApplied Materials of Helmholtz Centre, Berlin, Germany, 2012
Prof. Ganapati Ramanad, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,NY,USA, 2013
Prof. Francisco Javier Llorca Matinez, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, 2013
Prof. Narendra Dahotre, UniversityofNorthTexas,USA, 2014
Prof. D Hyang Kim, Yonse University, Seoul, Korea, 2014
Prof. Yunzhi Wang, The Ohio State University, Columbus, 2014
Prof. Tamas Ungar, Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary, 2015
Prof. Kannan M Krishnan, University of Washigton, Seattle,USA, 2015-16
Prof. Jiang-Zhong, Jiang Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, PR China, 2016
Prof. Tamas Ungar, Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary 2016
Prof. Surya R Kalidindi, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Atlanta, USA 2016.
Prof. Jerzy Antoni Szpunar, Univ. of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada 2017.
David P Fieid, Washington State Univ., Puliman, USA 2017.
Prof. Sridhar Seetharaman, Colorado School of Nimes Golden, USA 2017-18.
Prof. Hamish L. Fraser, Dept. of Materials Science & Engg., The Ohio State University, Columbia 2018.
Prof. Manoj Gupta, National University of Singapore, 2018
Prof. Sergii Divinskyi, University of Munster, Germany, 2019
Prof. Werner Skrotzki, Dresden University of Technology, Germany, 2019
Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam, University College London, UK, 2019
Teresa Perez-Prado, IMDEA Matrials Institute Madrid, Spain, 2020
Apparao Mohan Rao,Clemson University Clemson, South Carolina, 2023

DUPONT CHAIR

This chair was instituted during 2003 with an endowment given by M/s Du Pont de Nemours and Company, USA, for attracting researchers in the areas of Materials, Life Sciences & Polymers  The Chair would be offered to an eminent Researcher from within the country or abroad.

Prof. Anand Jogata, University of Lehigh, USA, 2005

G N RAMACHANDRAN CHAIR

Prof. G N Ramachandran Chair, endowed by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, was established during 2000.  The Chair would be offered to a distinguished scientist for a period up to one year.

Prof. Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, MRC Lab of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, 2006, 2008-09
Prof.Tom Blundell, University of Cambridge, UK, 2008

SATISH DHAWAN CHAIR

This Chair was stablished in 1996 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in the field of Engineering Sciences, having relevance to Space Science & Technology.

Prof. K R Sreenivasan, Yale University, USA, 2001
Prof. S S. Iyengar, Louisiana State University, USA, 2002
Prof. J N Reddy, TexasA&M University,Texas, USA, 2012, 2013
Prof. Tribrikram Kundu, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 2015
Prof. P Guruswamy, Ames Research Centre, California, USA, 2016
Prof. D.S. Naidu University of Minnesota, USA, 2016-17
Prof. Garry L Brown Princeton University, Princeton, N.J, 2017
Prof. Rama K Yedavalli  The Ohio State University, Columbia, USA, 2017
Lalitha Udupa,Michigan State University, 2018
Shanker Balasubramaniam,Michigan State University, 2018
Ramanujan Hegde,Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Ave, 2019
Pavithra Prabhakar,Kansas State University, 2020
Bharat Bhushan,The Ohio State University, 2021
Srihari Keshavamurthy,Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 2021
Prof. Satish Nagarajaiah, Rice Univ., Houston, TX , USA, 2022-
Prof. Rao S. Govindaraju, Purdue University, IN, USA, January 2023 to April 2023

SUNDARARAJAN CHAIR

This Chair, instituted in 1998,   is in two categories, the first one is offered for a duration of of approximately one year and the second one is offered for a duration of a  few weeks to a few months.

Prof. RomilaThapar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2001
Prof. S K Ramachandra Rao, University of Mysore, 2002
Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, New Delhi, 2002
Prof. Ramachandra Guha, Bangalore, 2003
Prof. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Secunderabad, 2004
Prof. Ashok V Desai, New Delhi, 2005
Prof. U R Anantha Murthy, Bangalore, 2006-07
Prof. Rajan Gurukkal, School of Social Sciences, Kottayam, 2008-09 & 2012-13
Prof. S L Byrappa, Mysore, 2011
Prof. Ashok V Desai, New Delhi, 2012, 2014
Prof. Uma Das Gupta, Kolkata, 2015
Prof. Chintan Vaishnav, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA, 2019-20
Dr. David L. Kirp, University of California, USA, 2021
Coretta Philips,London School of Economics, 2022

PRATT & WHITNEY CHAIR in Gas Turbine Engineering:

This chair was instituted by M/s. United Technologies Corporation, Pratt & Whitney Division in July 2008 with an endowment in the Department of Aerospace Engineering to strengthen the Gas Turbine Research initiative.  Currently, this is offered for period of one to two months.

Prof. Dilip R Ballal, University of Dayton, USA, 2011
Dr. Jayant S Sabnis, Pratt & Whitney Corp, USA, 2012
Prof. Timothy C Lieuwen, Georgia Institute of Tech., Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2014
Prof. Hukam C Mongia , Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 2014-15
Prof. Ravi N Banavar, IIT Bombay, 2015-16

A M Rajendran, University of Mississippi, USA, 2018-19

DST-IISc CENTENARY CHAIR PROFESSORSHIP

This Professorship will be valid for two years from the date of the first visit by the visiting Professor ( the visitor is expected to spend normally a minimum period of two months).  The IISc-DST Centenary Chair Professor will interact with the faculty and students of the Institute,  inspire enhanced levels of research collaboration and streamline growth of new areas of research at the Institute. Shorter visits of about one month will be decided on mutually agreed terms between the Institute and thevisitor.

Prof. Uriel Frisch, CNRS, France, 2010
Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, MRCLaboratory, Cambridge, UK, 2011
Prof. Bruno Ricco, UniversitadiBologna, Italy, 2011
Prof. Tom Albright, SalkInstitute, San Diego, USA, 2011
Prof. P M Ajayan, RiceUniversity, USA, 2012 & 14
Prof. Jainendra K Jain, Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2013
Prof. Thomas G Thundat, University of Alberta, Canada, 2013-14
Prof. Bian Cantor, UniversityofYork, UK, 2013-14
Prof. Ramesh Narayan, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, USA, 2015
Prof. Jainendra K Jain, Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2015
Prof. William A Goddard, Caltech, California, USA, 2015
Prof. Allan Peter Young,  University of California, USA, 2017
Prof. Richard N Zane, Stanford University Stanford, CA, 2017

SMT. RUKMINI – SHRI GOPALAKRISHNACHAR DISTINGUISHED CHAIR PROFESSORSHIP

Smt. Rukmini – Gopalakrishnachar Chair was instituted during 2007 by  an alumnus in the Division of Electrical Sciences.  This chair is  offered to celebrated researchers in Computer Science and related areas to visit IISc for research interactions and collaborations for several weeks to months.

Prof. Richard Anderson, University of Washington, 2012
Prof. Jaime Carbonell, CMU, 2013
Prof. Michael L Norman, University of California, SanDiego, 2015
Prof. Rakesh Agrawal, President and CEO, Data Insights Laboratories, USA and former distinguished scientist, IBM and Microsoft Research, 2016-17
Prof. Sargur N Srihari, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA, 2018
Prof. Babak Falsafi, School of Computer and Communication Sciences and the founding Director of the EcoCloud Research Centre at EPFL, Switzerland, 2019
Prof. Pavol Hell, Professor of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2019
Murali Annavaram,University of Southern California, 2022

BHARAT ELECTRONICS LIMITED (BEL) VISITING CHAIR IN RADAR SYSTEMS

This endowed chair was instituted by the Bharat Electronics Limited in 2008 to support the visit of eminent scientists with the objective of research collaborations and capacity building in new technologies for microwave and mm-wave radar systems, signal processing and communications in IISc.

Prof. Dusan Zrnic, National Severe Storms Laboratory, USA, 2014
Dr. Goutam Chattopadhyay, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and California Institute of Technology, USA, 2016-17
Prof. D V  Giri, CEO, Pro-Tech, Wellesley, MA, USA. – 2017
Prof. V Chandrasekar, Colorado State University, 2018

CPRI VISITNG CHAIR PROFESSOR

This endowed chair was instituted by the Central Power Research Institute, Bangalore to support the visit of eminent scientists with the objective of research collaborations  in new technologies for power systems and power electronics.

Prof. Ashoka K S Bhat, University of Victoria, Canada, 2014
Prof. Tangali S Sudarshan, University of Southern California, USA, 2017
Prof. Vijay Vittal, Arizona State University, USA, 2017
Prof. Balarko Chaudhuri, Imperial College, London, 2019
Prof. Tarlochan S Sidhu, University of Western Ontario, Canada, 2019

PRATIKSHA VISITING CHAIRS IN BRAIN AND COMPUTATION

Three endowed chairs have been instituted by the Pratiksha Trust founded by Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan and Mrs. Sudha Gopalakrishnan in 2015. This generous endowment supports creation of three endowed chairs offered to distinguished scientists in the areas of electrical, electronics, and computer sciences having broad relevance for brain research, learning, data science, and neuromorphic computing. The chair professors visit IISc for at least a month every year up to five years, to facilitate high impact collaboration leading to capacity building and ecosystem creation in the above areas.

Prof. Shihab Shamma, University of Maryland (since 2015 ) (Shri K Vaidyanathan Chair Professor)
Prof. Vasant Honavar, Pennsylvania State University (since 2016) (Smt. Sudha Murty Chair Professor)
Prof. Christos Papadimitriou, Columbia University (since 2017) (Pratiksha Trust Chair Professor)
Sachin Deshmukh,Wellcome Trust/DBT Intermediate Fellow, 2021
Rajest P N Rao,University of Washington, 2022

INFOSYS VISITING CHAIR

The Infosys Foundation has endowed Visiting Professorships in Mathematics and Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The purpose of these Professorships is to bring distinguished scientists in the broad areas of Physical and Mathematical Sciences to the IISc campus for collaborative research interactions. Visiting Professors are expected to spend a total of one year at IISc; visits can be spread out over a period of 4 years. The remuneration package for these Visiting Professorships is internationally competitive. If you are interested in this Professorship, please contact a faculty member at IISc who will then take the process forward. If you would like to nominate a distinguished Physicist or Mathematician for this Professorship, please send a nomination to the Chairman, Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science by e-mail (dean.phy@iisc.ac.in).

Venkatesh Kodur, University Distinguished Professor, Director, Center on Structural Fire Engineering and Diagnostics, 2022-2024
Prof. Jainendra K Jain, Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2016-2020
Prof. Susanne C Brenner , Louisiana State University, USA, 2016-2020
Prof. Aneesh V Maonohar, University of California, USA, 2016-2020
Prof. Xerxes Tata   Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Univ. of Hawali at  Manoa, USA, 2018-2022
Prof. James Connolly, Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich Ph.D. – Pennsylvania State University), Institute for Geochemistry and Petrology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland,  2019-2022
Harald Upmeier, Dept of Mathematics and Computer Science, Philipps-Universitat Marburg, Germany 2018, 2019
David Logan, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Univ of Oxford, UK 2019
Guy Theraulaz,Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Universite Paul Sabatier, France 2019
Vyjayanthi Chari, University of California, USA 2019
Girish S Agarwal, Texas A&M University, USA 2020 Ueli Grossniklaus University of Zurich 2020 Ashoke Sen Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad 2020 Ramanujan Hegde MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK 2019
Mohit Randeria,The Ohio State University, 2019
Roland Netz,FrieUniversitat Berlin, 2019
Ananth Grama,Purdue University, 2019
James A D Connolly,Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2019
Swapan Chattopadhyay,Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 2019
Yuvel Gefen,The Weizmann Institute of Science, 2020
Ueli Grossniklaus,University of Zurich, 2020
Ashoke Sen,Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, 2020
Ramanujan Hegde,MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, 2020
Venkatesh Kodur,Michigan Stage University, 2020
A R Ravishankara,Colorado State University, 2022
Je-Geun Park,Seoul National University, 2022

SMT SUDHA MURTHY DISTINGUISHED VISITING CHAIR

Vasant Honavar,Pennsylvania State University, USA, 2016-2019

K VAIDYANATHAN DISTINGUISHED VISITING CHAIR

Shihab Shamma,University of Maryland, USA, 2015-2020

PROF. K P ABRAHAM VISITING CHAIR

The Prof. K P Abraham Visiting Chair Professorship will enable distinguished scientists to spend significant periods of time at IISc.