University of California, Berkeley's dean appointed Plaksha University's founding chancellor

NEW DELHI: Plaksha University, Mohali welcomes former dean of engineering at UC Berkeley, Shankar Sastry as the new founding chancellor. He holds a BTech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB).

He completed his MA in mathematics and MS and PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS) from UC, Berkeley. Currently, Sastry is the Thomas Siebel distinguished professor of computer science at UC Berkeley. Sastry has co-authored around 600 technical papers and 10 books in his career as an academician. ]

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He has held several positions during his academic career including being the chair of the EECS department at UC Berkeley and the director of the information technology office at defense advanced research projects agency (DARPA), Arlington. He also served as faculty in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University.

His areas of personal research are artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), resilient cyber physical systems, mechanism design and incentive theory for the digital transformation system of complex societal scale systems networks, cybersecurity, autonomous robotic vehicles and robots, computer vision, nonlinear and adaptive control, control of hybrid and embedded systems.

Apart from his academic achievements some of Sastry has been awarded with notable accolades including the President of India Gold Medal in 1977, the IBM Faculty Development Award in 1983, and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985.

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On his appointment as Chancellor of Plaksha University, S Shankar Sastry said: “Higher education is at an inflection point. We need to provide students with a pedagogical experience at the nexus of Technology, Entrepreneurship and Design. Further, we need to challenge students to confront the messy societal scale grand challenge problems that confront us today. The opportunity to be a part of Plaksha University that has a unique model of being a modern research university with a new pedagogy and outlook, is a privilege and an exciting challenge for me.”

"I am heartened to see that Plaksha University has a wonderful set of founders and has already recruited a fantastic team of faculty and staff diligently working towards its purpose of reimagining technology education in India. I look forward to working with the team at Plaksha and steering this new kind of 21st-century university to greater heights.” he added.