WASHINGTON: Four Indian American engineers are chosen amongst the 80 new members selected for the prestigious US National Academy of Engineering for their contribution to the society. Anil K Jain, Dr Arati Prabhakar, Ganesh Thakur and Dr KR Sridhar have been formally inducted in a ceremony at the NAE's annual meeting in Washingtion, the institute's president CD Mote Jr announced in a statement.
Jain is a distinguished professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the Michigan State University. He was elected for his contributions to the engineering and practice of biometrics. A B.Tech graduate from IIT-Kanpur, his research interests include pattern recognition, computer vision and biometric recognition. He was also a consultant to the Indian government's Aadhaar programme that provides a 12-digit unique ID number to the residents of Indian citizens.
Dr Prabhakar, director of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Virginia, was chosen for national leadership to advance semiconductor and information technologies. She has served on the National Academies' Science Technology and Economic Policy Board, and also has chaired the Efficiency and Renewables Advisory Committee for the US Department of Energy. As the founding director of DARPA's Microelectronics Technology Office, she led a team of programme managers whose efforts covered areas such as optoelectronics, infrared imaging and nanoelecronics.
Thakur is the president of Thakur Services Inc. in Houston, Texas, and was named a member for leadership in the implementation of integrated reservoir management techniques. Sridhar, the principal co-founder and chief executive officer of Bloom Energy Corporation in California, was selected for the “contributions to transport phenomena and thermal packaging of electrochemical systems and generation of clean, reliable and affordable power.”
