Air Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh VSM Class I MBE, Chair of Excellence
Indian Air Force, Air Headquarters, New Delhi, India Instituted the Air Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh VSM Class I MBE, Chair of Excellence. This Faculty Chair promotes excellence and leadership in teaching, research and development, collaboration, and academic work in the field of developing new and emerging technologies, aerospace technologies in the areas of Aircraft Structural Integrity, Aircraft Health Monitoring, and other allied subjects in the fields of Aeronautics and Aviation.
Current Occupant
Prof. Abhishek
(Sep. 2025 - Sep. 2028)
Prof. Abhishek, from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in the area of rotary-wing aeromechanics, hover-capable micro air vehicles, multi-body dynamics, inverse flight dynamics simulation for helicopters, helicopter design, and wind turbines. He received his B.Tech. from IIT Kharagpur, followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA.
His pioneering contributions to helicopter and UAV technologies earned him the INAE Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship (2018-23). In 2023, he was appointed Chairman of the Unmanned Air Systems Panel under ARDB-DRDO. He has authored over 80 research publications, holds 12 patents, and led the team that won First Prize in the NIST First Responder 2020 UAS Endurance Challenge (USA).
Former Occupant
Prof. Ashoke De
(Apr. 2022 - Apr. 2025)
Dr. Ashoke De is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IITK and has a joint appointment in the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering at the same institute. His areas of interest include fluid mechanics, combustion, heat transfer, supersonic and hypersonic flows, aero-acoustics, multiphase modeling, Energy Harvesting, and Fluid-structure interaction. He is an AvHumboldt Fellow, Fellow of West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology, and currently a member of American Physical Society (APS), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA (senior), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power (FMFP), Indian Society for Heat and Mass Transfer (ISHMT), and Combustion Institute. He earned his doctorate from Louisiana State University, the USA in 2009.