3rd IIT-M Chair named after Kris Gopalakrishnan’s don

IIT-Madras alumnus and Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan today named the third Distinguished Chair in Computational Brain Research after retired professor of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering CR Muthukrishnan.

Gopalakrishnan had earlier announced the setting up of three Chairs in computational brain research in the institute with an endowment of ₹10 crore each.

The three Chairs focus on computing aspects – architecture and model of the brain – including the memory/ processor relationship and neuromorphic computing, a press release from IIT-Madras said.

The first Chair was endowed in December 2014 as Mahabala Distinguished Chair in Computational Brain Research and has since been occupied by Partha Mitra (Cold Spring Harbor Lab, New York).

The second was endowed in April 2015 as the NR Narayana Murthy Distinguished Chair in Computational Brain Research and is occupied by Mriganka Sur (MIT, Cambridge in the US).

The third, which was named today, was endowed in July 2015 and is occupied by Anand Raghunathan (Purdue University, West Lafayette in the US).

Gopalakrishnan recalled his tutelage under Muthukrishnan and said he was “humbled to name this Chair for Muthukrishnan whose teaching and guidance played a stellar role in shaping my career.”

Muthukrishnan, currently an advisor to Rajalakshmi Engineering College, was quoted in the release as saying that “while many of my students went on to become very successful entrepreneurs, the success of Infosys co-founded by Gopalakrishnan is a phenomenon unmatched before or since.”

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