Roddam Narasimha

Professor Roddam Narasimha[1] is Chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He concurrently holds the Pratt & Whitney chair in Science and Engineering at the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.

He was educated at the University College of Engineering and at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and obtained his PhD at the California Institute of Technology, USA, in 1961. He joined the Indian Institute of Science in 1962 and was associated with the Department of Aerospace Engineering in various capacities from that date till 1999. In 1982 he founded the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (now Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences), which he headed till 1989. During 1984 to 1993 he was Director of the National Aerospace Laboratories. For many years since 1983 he held a visiting position at Caltech, as Clark B Millikan Professor or Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar. During 1989-90 he was Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University in England. He has also held visiting positions at NASA Langley, Strathclyde, University of Brussels, Adelaide University etc. From 1990 to 1994 he was INSA Golden Jubilee Research Professor, and from 1994 to 1999 the ISRO K R Ramanathan Distinguished Professor at IISc/JNCASR. He was Director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies during 1997-2004.

Prof Narasimha’s research has been chiefly concerned with aerospace fluid dynamics and certain related problems in the atmosphere. He has made extensive studies of transitions between laminar and turbulent flow (going in either direction), the structure of shock waves, various characteristics of fully developed turbulent flow (e.g. their memory, the bursting phenomenon in boundary layers), the fluid dynamics of clouds, near-surface temperature distributions and eddy fluxes in atmospheric boundary layers. He has been closely associated with aerospace technology development in India at both technical and policy-making levels. During 1977-79, he was the Chief Project Coordinator in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

As Director of NAL he initiated and oversaw several major technology programmes. He served on the Board of Directors of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for several years. As a member of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Scientific Advisory Council he was instrumental in establishing a major parallel computing initiative in the country. He was President of the Indian Academy of Sciences during 1992-94 and spear-headed a new programme on university education in science, leading to the establishment of the journal Resonance and other Academy programmes involving teachers and students. He has served on the National Security Advisory Board and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister Cabinet. He is currently a member of the Space Commission, and co-chairs the Joint Steering Committee and the Joint Scientific Working Group for the Indo-French atmospheric research satellite Megha-Tropiques.

As Director of NIAS Prof Narasimha initiated a series of major dialogues on international security issues with the US National Academy of Sciences and other bodies, and pursued his interests in the history of science and technology.

He has been widely honoured for his research work as well as his scientific leadership. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Foreign Associate of both the US National Academy of Engineering and the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In India his distinctions include the Bhatnagar Prize, the Gujarmal Modi Award and the Padma Bhushan, among many others. He is a Fellow of all the national academies of science and engineering, and an Honorary Fellow of the Aeronautical Society of India. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of both Caltech and IISc. He has delivered numerous invited lectures at various international conferences. In 2000 he won the Fluid Dynamics Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

He is the author of more than 200 research publications and fifteen books. Narasimha has been awarded the Padma Bhushan.

External links

• Profile at JNCASR