4 Indian- Americans named to National Academy of Engineering

New York, (IANS) The 106 new members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in Washington include four Indian-American engineers who have made notable contributions to engineering research, practise, and teaching.

According to NAE President John L. Anderson, this raises the overall number of US members to 2,420 and the total number of international members to 319. Shorya Awtar, Anirudh Devgan, Anil Sachdev, and T.S. Ramakrishnan are the four Indian-Americans.

Awtar, CEO of Parallel Robotics LLC in Michigan, was chosen for creating and commercialising revolutionary surgical tools that have reduced the cost and increased accessibility of minimally invasive surgery all over the world.

Devgan, President and CEO of Cadence Design Systems in California, and Sachdev, Principal Technical Fellow and Lab Group Manager at General Motors Co., were chosen for their technical and business leadership in the electronic design automation industry.

Devgan, the president and chief executive officer of Cadence Design Systems in California, was chosen for his technical and commercial leadership in the electronic design automation sector, and Sachdev, the principal technical fellow and lab group manager at General Motors in Michigan, was chosen for his work on the study, creation, and commercialization of lightweight materials to increase vehicle fuel efficiency.

Ramakrishnan, senior scientific adviser at the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center in Massachusetts, for his work in the fields of petrophysics, reservoir characterisation, production well abandonment, and carbon sequestration and storage.

In addition to the four Indian-Americans, there are three other Indians among the 18 new international members of NAE. These include Vikram S. Deshpande, professor at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge in the UK, Raman Sujith, chair professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, and Aniruddha B. Pandit, vice chancellor and UGC Professor at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Bombay.

The officially inducted members of the newest elected class will take place on October 1, 2023, during the NAE’s annual conference. According to a release, being elected to the National Academy of Engineering is one of the highest professional honours an engineer can get.

According to a NAE announcement, “Academy membership honours people who have made extraordinary contributions to ‘engineering research, practise, or teaching, including, where applicable, significant contributions to the engineering literature’ and to ‘the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, producing important improvements in conventional fields of engineering, or establishing/implementing innovative ways to engineering education’.

The culmination of a year-long process is the election of new NAE members. The ballot is prepared in December, and the membership decision is made in January.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s National Academies of Engineering (NAE) was established in 1964 as a private, autonomous, non-profit organisation that provides engineering leadership in service to the country.