DEHRADUN/ROORKEE: The renowned academician Prof Kamal Kishore Pant has been appointed as the Director of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.
Talking about his priorities and goals for the institute, Prof Pant said, "In line with its vison, like all my contemporaries, we will try to create a sustainable and equitable society through teaching of cutting-edge academic content using state-of-the-art methodologies and innovative research in science and technology."
IIT Roorkee had celebrated its Sesquicentennial in October 1996 and now completed more than 175 years of its existence, he added.
Prof. Pant is focusing on a holistic perspective and a comprehensive strategy to accelerate the development of new interdisciplinary fields.
He says they would try to develop Hierarchical Intelligent Cyber-Physical Ecosystems.
“This will enable collaboration between engineering, arts, and other sciences on a much larger scale than has been done before”.
IIT Roorkee will focus on areas of Vision 2030 (Sustainable Clean and Green energy, Electric vehicles (EVs), renewables, rural industrialization, space, self-sufficiency in food production, distress-free healthcare, and digital India that will result in employable/entrepreneurial engineers.
He said they would focus on key emerging interdisciplinary fields including Cyber Engineering, Societal Systems, Living Systems Engineering. Biomechatronic/Robotics Engineering, Cognitive Systems Engineering. Knowledge Engineering, Emergent/Complexity Engineering, and Multiscale Systems engineering.
Prof. Pant group’s research work has been awarded twice the Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) award. Other honours are CHEMCON distinguished speaker award, Herdilia Award, Dr. A V Rama Rao award for the best Ph.D. supervision, and Dr. S S Deshpande award.
Prof Pant is also an Adjunct Faculty at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, a Joint Faculty at CRDT IIT Delhi, and Honorary Faculty at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Talking about the critical societal and regional issues that IIT Roorkee would focus on, Prof. Pant said the researchers would work on developing solutions for Technology development for Sustainable Energy and Environment, Smart Infrastructure and Hardened Structures for Defence Applications.
They will also work on developing Energy Storage Devices, Landslide, Snow, and Avalanche Studies, Pulsed Laser and Specialty Fibre; Shock and Detonics; Thermal Management as well, he added.
As one of the leading academicians in the country, Prof. Pant is working on coal to methanol conversion, e-waste and plastic management, hydrogen generation, CO2 capture and conversion, biomass valorization, using catalysis and reaction engineering.
With premier companies and government agencies, he has successfully completed more than 50 high-impact projects.
Prof Pant is also a Fellow of several national and international academies, which include the National Academy of Science India (NASI) and the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE).
Prof K K Pant received his Ph.D. (Chemical Engineering) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1997.
He seeks to take Institute to reach among the top-tier institutions globally.
Prof. Pant is also focusing on supporting the establishment of start-ups, going by the recent landscape of unicorns in India.
Prof Pant is also a leading expert on cutting-edge and futuristic technologies. He succeeded the outgoing Director, Prof. A K Chaturvedi on October 12, 2022.
Prof. M.L. Sharma, Dean of Finance & Planning, IIT Roorkee said, "Prof Pant is recognized for his expertise in futuristic research and for his outstanding position in the scientific community”.
