"Arvind & Renu Jain Chair in Medical Science & Technology" established at IIT-KGP
Information provided by IITKGP Foundation (January 2022)
Dr. Arvind Jain (1969/B.Tech./ME/AZ) and his wife, Renu recently donated funds to establish the "Arvind & Renu Jain Chair in Medical Science & Technology" at IIT Kharagpur. The primary objective of the Chair is to recognize and reward selected faculty members in the position of Full Professor in the School of Medical Science and Technology (SMST). Additionally, at the discretion of the Director of the Institute, the Chair may be offered for a one-, two-, or -three-year term to a new faculty member joining SMST from outside IIT Kharagpur. The role of the appointee to the Chair will be to promote research and innovation in SMST, improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, promote research-based learning within the student community and encourage them to publish papers in top-tier journals, organize/participate along with students in research seminars, promote research collaboration and student exchange programs with other institutions of higher education, and conceptualize new products as part of his/her research and work with industries on product development and joint commercialization/marketing. Additionally, the appointee will work on innovative concepts and complete at least one research paper per year in a top-tier journal and participate in at least one conference in an area where they can add substantial contributions in terms of new findings and innovations which will potentially attract other researchers to work in that area.
Arvind spoke on the development of this award, "This small contribution to IIT Kharagpur is something Renu and I have wanted to make for a long time. IIT Kharagpur is also the alma mater for both my brothers and three of my cousins over the twelve-year period, 1961-1972. We are delighted that everything fell into place in time to get IIT Kharagpur's new School of Medical Science and Technology (SMST) off to a good start. We look forward to SMST becoming a leading center of education, research, and innovation in medical science and technology in the years ahead."
Thank you to Arvind and Renu for setting up this Chair for the advancement of the School of Medical Science and Technology at IIT-Kharagpur!
More about Arvind and Renu
Dr. Arvind Jain is an internationally recognized expert in the aluminum industry with over 40 years of experience in the business. He founded AXJ Resources LLC, a metals and mining consulting company focused on aluminum, in 2013. Earlier he was Vice-President Strategy & Investments at Rio Tinto Alcan, and Vice-President Corporate Strategy at Alcan Inc. in Montreal, Canada. At Alcan, he played a key role in the acquisition by Rio Tinto of Alcan in a $41 Billion transaction. Earlier, he held positions of increasing seniority at Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation in Oakland, California.
In other professional assignments he headed the Energy Modeling Group at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, participated actively in the development of the PILOT Energy Model at Stanford University and worked as an Operational Research Analyst at ICI India in Kolkata.
Arvind holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Operations Research from Case Western Reserve University. He graduated at the top of the 1969 B.Tech. class in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur and was awarded the Institute's B.C. Roy Gold Medal as the best all-around graduating student.
Dr. Jain has been at the forefront of the IIT alumni movement in the USA for over 35 years and was amongst the first set of recipients of IIT Kharagpur's Distinguished Service Award in 2011.
He is a past President of both the IIT Kharagpur Foundation and the IIT Gandhinagar Foundation in the USA. He has also served on the Boards of PanIIT USA and Northern Light School, Oakland, California.
Mrs. Renu Jain grew up in Kolkata and obtained her M.Sc. in Child Development from Jadavpur University in 1979. After coming to the USA, she completed several courses in the areas of computer programming, accounting, and finance. She worked in the accounting departments of a number of Silicon Valley companies before joining the global HR services company Robert Half International (RHI) as a Financial Analyst. She retired from RHI in 2018 after a career of over 15 years.
As a homemaker, Renu (with her husband Arvind) has brought up two accomplished children -- a daughter Anjali, who is a Pediatric Endocrinologist at Stanford's Lucille Packard Children's Hospital and a son Saurabh, who is a software engineer working in the area of tax software design. In her retirement Renu traveled extensively before the Pandemic and currently spends significant time with her three grandchildren.