Prof. E.G. Ramachandran Institute chair

Description

About the Cause

The Metallurgical fraternity lost an excellent teacher, an academician par excellence and a visionary with the passing away of Prof. E.G. Ramachandran on February 14, 2018. He inspired not only everyone who came in contact with him but also those who have heard of him.

Born in 1925, he obtained his PhD in 1947 (at the age of 22, an extraordinary accomplishment) from University of Sheffield. After serving Department of Metallurgy, IISc, Bangalore, as a faculty member for 9 years and National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur as Assistant Director for 5 years, he moved to IIT Madras in 1961 as the first Professor of the Department of Metallurgical Engineering. He was also Director-in-charge of IIT Madras for a brief period. He superannuated from IIT Madras in 1985. He was instrumental in establishing the industrial metallurgy division in the Indian Institute of Metals and later became its President in 1980.

As the first Professor and the first Head, he shaped the Department of Metallurgical Engineering, IIT Madras, passionately, over three decades as a prominent place for excellence in teaching and research. His academic excellence is evident from his publications, including those in NATURE in early 60’s, which speak volumes about his exceptional research career. In spite of being a physical metallurgist, he laid the seeds of industrial metallurgy in the department and nurtured it.

As a teacher, he was the “Numero Uno” and inspired generations of metallurgists. He was taught by Sir C.V. Raman and he generated stalwarts of Metallurgy. Anyone who has been taught by him can never forget him. He made such a mesmerizing impact on his students. His students are the torch bearers for his teaching excellence.

Though he has left this physical world, he lives in all of us who have been inspired by him and he will live eternally in the hearts of all his admirers and everyone who is/was taught by his students and the generations that continue to get benefited by his legacy.

As a Guru Dakshina to him, we would like to establish a Chair in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Madras in his honour. We appeal to all of you to join hands in this endeavor and contribute generously. We would like to announce about the establishment of Prof. EGR Chair on his birthday, April 7, 2018. The amount to be raised for the setting up of the Chair is Rs. 65 Lakhs ($100,000). We request you to come forward at the earliest to meet the target. The Bank details are given in the Annexure-1. The donations to this Chair will be monitored separately and will not be used for any other general purpose.

We also invite all of you to join us on April 7, 2018 at IC&SR Auditorium, IIT Madras (2-4 PM) to express your gratitude towards this legend. We will also have the 6^th lecture in Prof. EGR Distinguished Lecture Series being delivered by Prof. K.A. Padmanabhan on that day.

We have uploaded the following related to 6th Prof. EGR Distinguished Lecture, Announcement of Prof. EGR Chair and Reminiscences on Prof. EGR on a google drive and the link is given below.

All the photos of the event
Video of 6th Lecture in Prof. EGR Distinguished Lectureseries by Prof. KA Padmanabhan
Video of Announcement of Prof. EGR Chair and Reminiscences on Prof. EGR
PDF file of Book released on the event.

Sixth Lecture of the Prof. EGR Distinguished Lecture Series

Appeal by

Mr. B. Muthuraman (1966, B.Tech, Metallurgy, IITM)
(Former Vice Chairman, Tata Steel)