"Suresh and Vidya Nair Chair Professorship in Industrial and Systems Engineering" established at IIT-KGP
Information provided by IITKGP Foundation (January 2022)
Suresh Nair ('79/B.Tech/MET/AZ) and his wife Vidya recently donated $100,000 to, among other things, institute the "Suresh and Vidya Nair Chair Professorship in Industrial and Systems Engineering". The main objective of this award is to encourage practice-based research and industrial collaboration in IIT-Kharagpur's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and concomitant benefits in teaching, pedagogy, and outreach.
Suresh appreciates his first course in Operations Research (OR) offered by the then Industrial Management department as one of the best OR courses he has ever received. Since he made a career in OR and Industrial Engineering (IE) and is grateful for a merit-cum-means scholarship he received, he feels that he owes his academic and career success to the fine education he received at IIT Kharagpur and would like to show his gratitude to his alma mater by establishing a Chaired Professorship in his and wife's name in the ISE Department. “Getting into IIT Kharagpur was the best thing that happened to me. Though among so many smart people I was not outstanding, the education I received, and the campus experience was exceptional in every sense. That solid grounding and provenance opened doors for me, making my path easier throughout my career,” says Suresh.
We are very pleased to announce that Suresh recently joined the IITKGP Foundation USA as a Trustee and we look forward to his experience and expertise to help us continue to grow as a Foundation. The IITKGP Foundation USA congratulates and thanks Suresh and Vidya on the setting up of this Chair!
More About Suresh
Suresh Nair received his B.Tech degree in Metallurgical Engineering in 1979, a PGDIE from Training Institute of Productivity and Industrial Engineering (National Productivity Council) in Chennai in 1981, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois in 1986 and 1988 respectively. Suresh was Department Head and Cizik Chair in Manufacturing and Technology Management in the School of Business at University of Connecticut (UConn), Storrs, USA, before his retirement in June 2020. UConn is a top 20 public university in the US. He is currently Professor Emeritus.
Suresh is an expert in business analytics and has worked on projects on the interface of operations, finance and marketing in financial services, supply chain management, and healthcare. Dr. Nair kept in touch with industry by spending his sabbatical leaves going back to industry and being a consultant to various companies such as General Electric, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Booz and Company, and others. He also founded FinOpTrix, a software services startup in the bank reserves optimization space, with seed capital from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Suresh has also been visiting faculty at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) in Calcutta and Lucknow.
Suresh has held administrative positions both at the college and university levels at UConn. In addition to being department head, he was also Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the Business School, and the university's Associate Vice Provost for Institutional Research and Effectiveness. He was trained in Management and Leadership in Education (MLE) at Harvard University. Prior to his academic career, he worked as Assistant Director at National Productivity Council (1981-84) and Siemens (1984-85) in Mumbai before migrating to the US.
After retirement, Suresh has assembled quite a following among friends and family for his data analytics driven stock market investment ideas. He is in the process of parlaying his hobby into a second innings by founding a hedge fund. Suresh and Vidya reside in Vienna, Virginia, and enjoy spending time with their grandkids.