The alumni of IIT Kanpur and former students of Prof. T. R. Viswanathan have enthusiastically volunteered to contribute towards setting up an Endowment Fund for Teaching Excellence at their alma mater in the name of their respected Professor, Dr. T. R. Viswanathan. IIT Kanpur was built by some outstanding faculty led by its eminent Director Prof. PK Kelkar. Their untiring efforts led to IIT Kanpur being the best academic institution in the country, and their legacy has survived the test of time. Prof. Viswanathan is one of the founding faculty members of IIT Kanpur who joined in the 60’s when IIT Kanpur was in its evolutionary state from greenfield. He is among the best teachers that IIT Kanpur has ever had.
This fund will primarily support a Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teachers on a perpetual basis. Establishment of this chair will fill a gap at the institute and will motivate outstanding faculty to invest their time and effort in teaching and developing new pedagogy.
Dr. Viswanathan was a Professor of Electrical Engineering, Head, Computer Centre, and Dean of R&D at IIT Kanpur. He taught courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering and supervised the thesis work of many graduate students in the area of Analog Integrated Circuit Design. He joined IIT Kanpur in 1965 in the initial stages of the institute and until he left in 1978, he worked tirelessly in establishing the Electrical Engineering department of IIT Kanpur along with other eminent faculty of the department. He is admired by his students as an outstanding Teacher who connected well with his students. Several of his students have been extremely successful in industry and in academics.
Post IIT Kanpur he joined University of Waterloo as Professor of Electrical Engineering. Dr Viswanathan joined AT&T Bell laboratories where he worked for ten years his responsibilities were the design and manufacturing of products for data and voice communication systems. He has been Adjunct Professor at University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Electrical Engineering at University of Michigan, Dearborn, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
Dr. Viswanathan spent 15 years in research and development, product design, manufacturing, and management in the industry. He retired as a Director of Research and Development from Texas Instruments and thereafter was a Partner at Artiman Ventures.
Dr. Viswanathan holds a B.Sc in Physics from the University of Madras in 1956. He won the prestigious Jagirdar of Arni gold medal of the University for being the best Physics student of the year in 1956.
http://www.arnijagir.com/arni_medal.htm. He graduated in Electrical & Communications Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1959. He received an M.Sc. in 1961 and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1964 from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
Currently Dr. Viswanathan is a Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and held the Silicon Laboratories Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering for thirteen years before retirement.
The Faculty Chair is proposed to be awarded to faculty who distinguish themselves in teaching undergraduate students and to encourage them to innovate in pedagogy.
The Chair will appropriately enable the Institute to reward and recognize the distinguished and outstanding faculty who have created immense impact on the career of their students through years of dedicated teaching and mentoring. The Chair will be an epitome of deep reverence that his students hold for their beloved Prof. Viswanathan and will honour and admire outstanding and visionary professors of IIT Kanpur in the years to come.
The chair will be perpetual in nature and will be awarded by IIT Kanpur as per their applicable policies.
The Fellowship will acknowledge young and enthusiastic faculty under 40 years who are excellent teachers at an early age and will promote their efforts in creating new methods and pedagogical approaches.(The fellowship will be awarded based on availability of funds)
Heartfelt Gratitude