First Lady Deputy Director for the First IIT of the Nation

It is an immense pleasure and delight to welcome Prof. Rintu Banerjee as the new Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur. Prof Banerjee has created a historical breakthrough by being the first woman to take over the charge of a Deputy Director of the first IIT of the country and the world.

Prof. Banerjee is the Founder Head and is presently the Chairperson of P K Sinha Centre for Bioenergy and Renewables. She has also served as the Head of the Centre for Rural Development, Innovative and Sustainable Technology and Head of the Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering at IIT Kharagpur for 3 years. In her career span, she has held many important portfolios including Chairperson of Centre of Excellence in Precision Agriculture & Food Nutrition; Nodal Coordinator for Australia and New Zealand for SPARC & Coordinator for RuTAG.

Prof. Banerjee has completed her PhD in Microbial Biotechnology from Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Kharagpur. From the beginning of her career she was engaged in industry-academy collaborative research activities. As an outcome of her research, she has transferred several technologies to different industries and have many national/international patents to her credit. Recently, she has successfully transferred her 1G & 2G Ethanol technology to the industry for commercialization.

She has published two books in the area of environmental biotechnology and OMICS Based Approaches in Plant Biotechnology. Besides that she has handled several government/private/industry sponsored projects that includes TBT, DST, ICAR, UAI, ICMR, IMPRINT, SPARC, SERB and many other multinational industries. She has visited several countries as a Visiting Professor and for various scientific collaborations that includes Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Egypt, Australia, US, Taiwan, Japan, UK, South Korea, Laos, Thailand, Dubai, Doha, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia to name a few.

Prof. Banerjee was conferred the Panjabrao Deshmukh Award for Outstanding Women Scientist from ICAR; Best Woman Bioscientist form Biotech Research Society of India; Young Scientist Award’ 94 from the Association for Food Scientists and Technologists (India); Dr. Prem Dureja Endowment; Institute Chair Professor from IIT Kharagpur; Louis Pasteur Award; Madan Mohan Malviya Award and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award. She has also received the Most Inspiring Women Engineer/Scientist for the year 2014, for the exemplary work in the field of Science & Technology by Engineering Watch, New Delhi and has more than 6000+ citations under her name.

IIT Kharagpur wishes her all the best for future endeavours.

Edited By: Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

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Appointment of our new Deputy Director- Prof Amit Patra

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur welcomes its new Deputy Director, Professor Amit Patra from the Department of Electrical Engineering. Prof Patra has assumed the charge as Deputy Director from June 30, 2021.

The IIT Kharagpur Director, Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari affirmed, “As a Deputy Director, Prof Patra will provide academic and administrative leadership to the Institute in our ambition to become a pioneering institution of higher education, setting new global standard  and academic benchmarks thus revolutionizing the education landscape in the country. I am sure, he will take the institute activities to newer heights”.

Prof Amit Patra is an alumnus as well as faculty of IIT Kharagpur. He received the B.Tech., M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1984, 1986 and 1990 respectively. During 1992-93 and in 2000 he visited the Ruhr-University, Bochum, Germany as a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Alexander   von   Humboldt   Foundation.   He   joined   the   Department   of   Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1987 as a faculty member. During 2018-19, he visited the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a Senior Visiting Research Scientist and since his return, has been serving as an Honorary Adjunct Professor. He was the Professor In-Charge, Advanced VLSI Design Lab, at IIT Kharagpur during 2004-07. Between 2007 and 2013 he served as the Dean (Alumni Affairs and International Relations) at IIT Kharagpur.

Dr. Patra received the Young Engineer Award of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 1996 and the Young Teachers’ Career Award from the All India Council for Technical Education in 1995. He had been a Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences during 1992-97. He is a member of IEEE (USA), Institution of Engineers (India) and a life member of the Systems Society of India. Dr.  Patra had been listed as one the top contributors of engineering publications in the country by a DST-conducted survey spanning the period 2002-2014. Under his mentorship a team of students received the DST-TI Innovation Award for their pioneering work on Battery Management Systems in the year 2018.

Prof Amit Patra said, “I am honoured to be chosen as the Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur. I am glad to get this opportunity to serve my Alma Mater. I want to express my gratitude to the competent authority and the IIT community for bestowing their trust in me. I am looking forward to work with all the stakeholders to achieve the goals and aspirations of the institute.”

Contact: Paramita Dey, Junior Assistant

Email: media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282004