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IIT Kharagpur Foundation (USA) NEWSLETTER

Volume: 5.11.2024

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The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recognizes IITKGPian Dr. Ajit Roy with its inaugural John J. Montgomery Award for Distinguished Innovation in Aerospace

Photo Courtesy of US Air Force

On April 30th 2024, Dr. Ajit Roy (1975/MME) received the inaugural John J. Montgomery Award for Distinguished Innovation in Aerospace, courtesy of the ASME (The American Society of Mechanical Engineers).  The John Montgomery Award recognizes the outstanding contribution of an individual engineer residing in the international community who has researched, designed or developed (or any combination thereof) new technologies or equipment for the aerospace industry. 

Ajit is a senior materials engineer with the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL. According to a press release by the AFRL, "the award signifies a great achievement that exemplifies his dedication to finding technical solutions to advance both the DAF and NASA missions." Dr. Roy, who has been with AFRL since 1985, is being recognized for his ground-breaking contributions  to materials morphology of multifunctional carbon foam, 3D nano-porous carbon and durable thermal interface, expanding the materials performance domain to aerospace system application at an accelerated pace. His pioneering effort in the development of 3D nano-porous carbon had unprecedented and broad applications in structural, thermal and energy, impact resistant and damage tolerant thin film coatings, low-density materials, lightning strike protection, efficient capacitors and electrodes, responsive thermal energy storage and conversion and oil-spill clean-up.  

In addition to this most recent accolade, Roy’s work was also recognized by the American Society of Composites in 2021. In 2017, he was named as an AFRL fellow and is a fellow of three other organizations: the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and ASC, of which he has been a member since 1986. He has also had the distinction of serving on journal editorial boards and various prestigious advisory and review panels, including as chair of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Advisory Board from 2011 to 2016.

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IITKGP alum and current Deputy Director of IITKGP, Dr. Amit Patra, has been appointed as Director of IIT BHU (Varanasi)

Amit Patra, Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur has recently been appointed as the Director, IIT BHU (Varanasi) by the Ministry of Education. Prof. Amit Patra received his B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD degrees from IIT 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, IIT 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 has been serving as an Honorary Adjunct Professor. He also served many administrative positions as the Dean of Alumni Affairs and International Relations between 2007 and 2013 and was the Professor-In-Charge, Advanced VLSI Design Lab at IIT Kharagpur during 2004-07.