IITK Foundation IITKDF

Pradeep Sindhu Chair

Mr. Pradeep Sindhu (BT/EE/1974) established the Pradeep Sindhu Foundation, which supports the Pradeep Sindhu Chair. The Chair has been instituted for the path-breaking research in the field of Mathematics & Statistics. Mr. Sindhu is the CEO & Founder of data center technology company, Fungible. Known for his entrepreneurial skills, Mr. Sindhu is a renowned name in technology development & innovation. He founded Juniper Networks in 1996 in California where he served as the Chief Scientist and CTO for over 20 years. He played an instrumental role in the architecture, design and development of the M40 router.

Current Occupant

Prof. Rajshekhar Gannavarpu

(Sep. 2025 - Sep. 2028)

Prof. Rajshekhar Gannavarpu from the department of Electrical Engineering and Photonics Science and Engineering, IIT Kanpur has research interest in quantitative phase imaging, optical metrology, applied signal processing, fringe analysis and biophotonics. He received his M.Tech. from IIT Kanpur and Ph.D. from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) Switzerland. Prof. Gannavarpu is a recipient of SERB Early Career Research Award.



Former Occupant

Prof. Dattatraya H. Dethe

(Apr. 2022 - Apr. 2025)

Prof. Dattatraya H. Dethe from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Kanpur, works in the area of Organic Chemistry and Total Synthesis, with a focus on developing new synthetic methods, strategies, and reagents for the synthesis of natural products and biologically important compounds. His work also encompasses new annulation strategies for constructing carbocyclic and heterocyclic systems, asymmetric catalysis, stereoselective synthesis, physical organic chemistry, and metal-based reactivity. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc) and a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the CSIR Young Scientist Award (2011), OPPI Young Scientist Award (2011), AVRA Young Scientist Award (2014), CRSI Bronze Medal (2020), and SERB-STAR Award (2020). He earned his Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from IISc Bangalore in 2005.