Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair
Mrs. Poonam & Dr. Prabhakar Goel (BT/EE/1970) instituted the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur. Dr. Goel is an Indian-American researcher and an entrepreneur. After completing his B.Tech from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur in 1970, he went on to pursue PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, USA. Post his doctorate, Dr. Goel joined IBM's EDA organization where he developed PODEM Automatic test pattern generation & Verilog hardware description language, one of his most famous works.
Current Occupant
Prof. Mainak Chaudhuri
(May 2026 - May 2029 )
Prof. Mainak Chaudhuri, from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur, specializes in computer hardware and computer architecture. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University and is a recipient of the Technology Excellence Award.
Prof. J.K. Bera
(Sep. 2025 - Sep. 2028)
Prof. Jitendra Kumar Bera, from the Department of Chemistry at IIT Kanpur, has research interests in bimetallic synergism, small molecule activation, metal-ligand cooperativity, n-heterocyclic carbene, and green chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from IISc Bangalore. Prof. Bera is a recipient of the Bronze Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India, the Swarnajayanti Fellowship (DST), and the Ramanna Fellowship (DST). He is also a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and has served as a member of the International Advisory Board of the XXV ICOMC (Lisbon, 2012) and the XXVI ICOMC (Sapporo, Japan, 2014).
Prof. Ashok Kumar
(Jun. 2024 - Jun. 2027)
Prof. Ashok Kumar from the Department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in biomaterials, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, stem cell research, bioprocess engineering, environmental biotechnology, smart polymers, drug delivery, and cryogel-based technologies. His recognitions include the TATA Innovation Fellowship (2013), Madhav Rao Scindia Memorial Award (2013), Samsung-GRO Research Award (2012), and FAOB Executive Board Membership (2008). He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) and the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), India.
He earned his Ph.D. jointly from IIT Roorkee and the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in Sweden and Japan. Before joining IIT Kanpur in 2004, he served as a faculty member at Lund University, Sweden.
Former Occupant
Prof. Amey Karkare
(Jul. 2022 - Jul. 2025)
Prof. Amey Karkare, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, research interests include intelligent Tutoring Systems, Program Analysis, Compiler Optimization, and Functional Programming. He did his B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur in 1998 and Ph.D. from IIT Bombay in 2009. Dr. Karkare received the prestigious Infosys fellowship during his Ph.D. and P. K. Kelkar Young Research Fellowship at IIT Kanpur. He has been a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research, Redmond, and IIT Bombay.
Prof. Pratik Sen
(Apr. 2022 - Apr. 2025)
Prof. Pratik Sen from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in ultrafast laser spectroscopy, single-molecule spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. He has received several honors, including the INSA Young Scientist Medal (2012), CRSI Bronze Medal (2021), and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2021). He is also a former INYAS member (2016-2020) and recipient of Young Faculty Fellowships from IIT Kanpur and the Ministry of Electronics & IT. He earned his Ph.D. from IACS, Kolkata, in 2006.
Prof. Jayant K. Singh
(Feb. 2021 - Jan. 2024)
Prof. Jayant K. Singh (BT/CHE/1997) is a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur, with research interests in material modeling, thermodynamics of complex fluids, molecular simulation, adsorption and separation, and force-field development. His work focuses on AI- and physics-based discovery of materials, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, along with formulation stability and porous adsorbent design for industrial applications.
He leads a research group that develops computational tools such as MIST, used for sorption and phase equilibrium calculations, and has translated research into deployable innovations including Bhu-Parikshak (soil sensing device) and Munh-Parikshak (early oral cancer detection tool).
In 2019, he co-founded Prescience Insilico, which accelerates discovery in drugs, chemicals, and materials using an integrated AI- and physics-based platform for FMCG and pharmaceutical industries.
He holds a B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur (1997), an M.S. in Computer Science (2002), and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering (2004) from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, 2004 , and has received several honors including the SERB STAR Award and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship.
Prof. Mainak Chaudhuri
(May 2019 - Apr. 2022)
Prof. Mainak Chaudhuri, from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur, specializes in computer hardware and computer architecture. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University and is a recipient of the Technology Excellence Award.