Three Indian alumni were among the 16 recipients honored with the 2021 Excellence in Engineering and Architecture Alumni Awards in the categories of academic excellence, career achievement, and entrepreneurship and innovation.
The honors recognize exceptional alumni from across the College of Engineering who have achieved distinction in their fields or through their extraordinary service contributions since graduating from The Ohio State University. A celebration of the 2021 winners will be held in 2022.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate these 16 exceptional alumni and their achievements in innovation, scholarship, leadership and service,” said Dean Ayanna Howard. “These Buckeyes not only inspire us and make us proud, they also illustrate how engineers, architects and planners benefit society and improve our world.”
Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Excellence
A leading researcher in artificial intelligence for wearables, Santosh Kumar (MS ’02, computer and information science; PhD ’06, computer science and engineering) is the Lillian & Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence Professor in Computer Science at the University of Memphis. Since 2006, he has led and participated in federally-funded multidisciplinary projects totaling over $50 million.
Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement
Indian National Academy of Engineering member Shivkumar (Shiv) Kalyanaraman (MS ’94, PhD ’97, computer and information science) has had a successful, multi-faceted career as both an educator and industry leader. Currently, he is CTO, Energy & Mobility, with Microsoft R&D India.
Distinguished Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Rakesh Gupta (BS ’83, electrical engineering) is CEO of KiwiTech, a software development company he co-founded with his siblings, and managing partner of KiwiVenture, a venture capital seed fund. Previously he co-founded Aptara, a 5,000-employee technology services company acquired in 2012 for $144 million.