Instituted by IIT Kanpur, the P. K. Kelkar Fellowship is named in honour of Dr. Purushottam Kashinath Kelkar (1909-1990), the founding Director of IIT Kanpur. Appointed in 1959, Dr. Kelkar played a pivotal role in shaping the Institute's academic vision and establishing its distinctive interdisciplinary culture, integrating engineering, science, humanities, and research. He was also instrumental in launching the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP), a landmark collaboration that significantly contributed to the growth and development of IIT Kanpur. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to technical education in India, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1969.

The P. K. Kelkar Fellowship recognises and supports outstanding young faculty members who demonstrate exceptional promise in research and academic excellence, carrying forward Dr. Kelkar's vision of innovation and scholarly leadership.

Prof. Sudeep Kumar Ghosh

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Sudeep Kumar Ghosh from the Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in superconductivity and magnetism, topological order, and ultracold atoms. He earned his PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and has made significant contributions to the theoretical understanding of complex quantum systems.

Prof. Umesh Madanan

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Umesh Madanan from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in the field of experimental heat and mass transfer, His research group focuses on experimental approaches to understanding both fundamental and real-world problems in heat and mass transfer. These include, but are not limited to, thermal convection with/without porous media, pool boiling heat transfer enhancement, passive thermal management techniques such as heat pipes and thermosyphons, thermo-hydraulic performance augmentation in minichannel heat exchangers, and thermofluidics of supercritical fluids in compact heat exchangers. He earned his B.Tech. from the University of Calicut, M.Tech. from IIT Madras, and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Before joining IIT Kanpur, he gained industry experience at Mahindra & Mahindra and General Electric.

Prof. Ritika Gautam

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Ritika Gautam from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Kanpur specializes in biological inorganic chemistry, metals in medicine, immunology, metal-based neuropharmacology, and self-assembled metal-complex nanoaggregates. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Arizona and pursued postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute, California.

Prof. Avinash Lahgere

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Avinash Lahgere from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in compact modeling of semiconductor devices and their application in circuit design and simulation. He earned his Ph.D. from IIT Delhi, specializing in semiconductor device modeling and circuit applications. Prior to joining IIT Kanpur, he worked at GlobalFoundries, Bengaluru, where he developed SPICE models for semiconductor devices across various process nodes. He is a recipient of the Paired Early Career Fellowship in Applied Research (PECFAR) from the Indo-German Science & Technology Centre.

Prof. Priyanka Vijay Bagade

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Priyanka Vijay Bagade from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in the Internet of Things (IoT), sensor systems, mobile computing, deep learning, and medical image analysis, with a focus on developing intelligent, data-driven solutions for smart and connected systems. She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University, USA.

Prof. Sudarshan Narayanan

(May 2026-May 2029)

Prof. Sudarshan Narayanan from the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in solid-state batteries (solid electrolytes and anode materials), thin films for energy conversion (including transparent conductors and low-emissivity coatings), and advanced materials characterization for energy applications. He received his B.Tech. in Engineering Physics from the IIT Madras followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

Prof. Apparao Draksharapu

(Sep. 2025-Sep. 2028)

Prof. Apparao Draksharapu from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Kanpur has research interest in addressing the key challenges in chemical transformations important to industry, emphasizing the development of synthetic mimics of metalloenzymes to catalyze biological reactions. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Prof. Raghvendra Chaudhary

(Sep. 2025-Sep. 2028)

Dr. Raghavendra Kumar Chaudhary from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in reconfinable active antenna, multifunctional/smart metamaterial antenna, compact MIMO antenna, frequency selective surface and circularly polarized antenna, dielectric resonator antenna, mm-wave & THz passive components.
He is the recipient of several prestigious honors, including the NASI Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award, the INAE Young Engineer Award, and the IETE-IRSI Young Scientist Award. He earned his M.Tech. from IIT (BHU), Varanasi, and his Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur.

Prof. Supratik Banerjee

(Sep. 2024-Sep 2027)

Prof. Supratik Banerjee from the Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in plasma astrophysics, turbulence and reconnection in space plasmas, multiphase turbulence, and turbulence in complex fluids. He obtained his Ph.D. from University Paris-Sud, France. His contributions have been recognized with the INSPIRE Faculty Award in Physical Sciences from the Indian National Science Academy and the Prix de These (Best Thesis Award) from Ecole Doctorale Ondes et Matiere, France.

Prof. Diptarka Das

(May 2024- April 2027)

Prof. Diptarka Das from the Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in conformal field theories, non-equilibrium physics, and string theory. He earned his B.E. and M.Sc. from BITS Pilani and a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, USA. Before joining IIT Kanpur in 2018, he held research positions at the University of California, San Diego, and the Albert Einstein Institute-Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Germany.

Prof. Purushottam Kar

(May 2024-April 2027)

Prof. Purushottam Kar from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in machine learning, optimization, statistical learning theory, online and stochastic learning, multi-label classification, high-dimensional statistics, and kernel methods. He completed his B.Tech. and Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur and has received several honours, including the ICML Reviewer Award and IITK Academic Excellence Awards.

Prof. Shubham Sahay

(May 2024-April 2027)

Prof. Shubham Sahay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He completed B.Tech in Electronics Engineering with four gold medals and several cash prizes from IIT (BHU), Varanasi in 2014 and Ph.D. from IIT Delhi in 2018. Dr. Sahay is a recipient of the IEEE Electron Devices Society Early Career Award and Young Associate of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE). He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in prominent IEEE journals and conferences. Dr. Sahay is a senior member of IEEE and the chair of IEEE EDS Kanpur chapter and has reviewed more than 125 articles.
Gratitude Video

Prof. Vipul Arora

(May 2024-April 2027)

Prof. Vipul Arora from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, has research interests in speech, music, and audio processing, including audio LLMs, speech recognition, and music analysis. He also works on generative machine learning for computational physics, trustworthy AI, human-machine learning, and efficient ML techniques for audio and air quality monitoring. He earned his B.Tech. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur.

Prof. Arghya Das

(July 2022 - June 2025)

Prof. Arghya Das, Department of Civil Engineering, research interests are Granular material mechanics, Flow through porous media, Constitutive modeling of geomaterials, Instability and bifurcation analysis, Rock Mechanics. He received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 2013 and later worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA.

Prof. Arjit Kundu

(July 2022 - June 2025)

Prof. Arjit Kundu, Department of Physics, research interests are Equilibrium and non-equilibrium quantum transport, Topological systems in condensed matter. He did his PhD in 2012 from Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany, MSc in 2010 Homi Bhabha National Institute (from Harish-Chandra Research Institute and BSc in 2007 from Calcutta University (Serampore College).

Prof. Nitin Gupta

(July 2022 - June 2025)

Prof. Nitin Gupta, Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, research interests are Systems Neuroscience, Olfaction, Mental Health. Prof. Nitin Gupta graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2004 with a B.Tech. in Computer Science and joined the PhD program in bioinformatics and systems biology at the University of California, San Diego. After earning his PhD in 2009, he spent a few months in a cognitive neuroscience lab at UCSD, and then moved to the National Institutes of Health as a postdoc to learn electrophysiology. He returned to India in 2014 to start his research lab at IIT Kanpur. He is a recipient of many honors and awards such as the Swaranajayanti Fellowship, 2021 in Life Sciences from Department of Science and Technology, Excellence-in-Teaching Award, IIT Kanpur, 2019, The Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Fellow, 2016, Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award, DBT, 2015, Ramalingaswami Fellow, DBT, 2014.

Prof. Shilpi Gupta

(July 2022 - June 2025)

Prof. Shilpi Gupta, Department of Physics, research interests are electromagnetic simulations, nanofabrication, optical microscopy, spectral and time-resolved measurements, and theoretical modeling of nanophotonic devices . Dr. Gupta graduated from IIT Delhi with a BTech in Engineering Physics. She then obtained MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA . Some key research contributions of her team include demonstration of a cost-efficient and portable spectrometer, a thin-film based beam-shaping device that is robust to optical misalignment, a remote diagnostic technique for detecting cracks in photonic crystals over large areas, a theoretical model to explain luminescence behavior of quantum dots, and a multi-parameter optimization scheme for ground-state cooling of a mechanical resonator mode using quantum dots.

Prof. Raju Kumar Gupta

(July 2022 - June 2025)

Prof. Raju Kumar Gupta, Department of Chemical Engineering, research interests are photocatalysis, green synthesis of nanomaterials and surface chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from National University of Singapore in 2010. Dr. Gupta has been recipient of several fellowships and awards for his outstanding career in academic and research fields. Some of the fellowships and awards include DST Inspire Faculty Award 2013, IEI Young Engineer Award (2014-15), Young Scientist Award (2014-15), Young Faculty Research Fellowship 2018, and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) 2022.

Prof. Sudharshana N. P.

(March 2022 - Feb. 2025)

Prof. Sudharshana N P is Assistant Professor (English) at Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur. He has PhD from the English and Foreign Languages University (Formerly Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages), Hyderabad, India specializing in English Language Education. His main research interests are Applied Cognitive Semantics, English as a Second Language Studies and Materials Development.

Prof. Sudhanshu Shekhar

(March 2022 - Feb. 2025)

Prof. Sudhanshu Shekhar Singh is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur since December 2015. He earned his Ph.D. from Arizona State University, USA in 2015. He received his B. Tech degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 2008. After his undergraduate studies, Dr. Singh joined Tata Steel (Jamshedpur) and worked there for three years. The broad area of his research includes mechanical behaviour of materials at different length scales, 3D/4D materials science and laser assisted processing of materials. Dr. Singh has been awarded sponsored projects from various agencies (such as DST, SERB, ISRO). He has co-authored over 80 papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Singh is a recipient of several awards, including INYAS Member, NASI Young Scientist platinum jubilee award, Young Metallurgist of the Year by the Ministry of Steel, and IEI Young Engineer award.