Former ISRO Chief K. Sivan has been appointed as the Chairman of the Indian Institute of Technology Indore’s Board of Governors for a three-year period. He succeeded Professor Deepak B Phatak, whose tenure ended on August 21, 2023. Dr. K. Sivan holds a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology. He pursued a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering at IISc Bangalore and is an alumnus of IIT Bombay, where he completed his doctoral degree in Aerospace Engineering. He headed ISRO from 2018 to 2022 and was in charge of its Chandrayaan-2 mission, which was launched on July 22, 2019.

Recently, IIT Indore introduced 10 new academic programs, including BTech in Space Science and Engineering, for this academic session, becoming the first IIT in the country to offer the course. The program has an intake capacity of 20, including 4 female students. The college has already introduced MTech and Ph.D. programs in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Space Engineering since 2016.

The college is looking forward to a more direct collaboration with ISRO and large-scale projects. The director of the college, Professor Suhas Joshi, said they were delighted and excited to have Dr. Sivan, an alumnus of IISc Bangalore and IIT Bombay, as the chairman of the board of governors. Further adding to his statement, he said, “I am confident that under Sivan’s guidance, the institute is expected to reach new heights in the unexplored field of Space Engineering and contribute to the country’s Space mission.” The institute tweeted on ‘X’ and welcomed the new chairperson with pride and joy. They honored Dr. K. Sivan, former Chairperson of ISRO and former Secretary of the Department of Space, as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIT Indore.

-Varuni Gupta