Singh builds collaborations with institutes in India

Mechanical engineering Professor Emeritus Rajendra Singh represented The Ohio State University during a visit to India November 19-27.

Singh is well-respected internationally for his research, teaching and consulting work in machinery vibration, acoustics, nonlinear dynamics and digital signal processing, with applications to vehicles and geared systems.

While in India Singh covered a broad agenda, organized by Ohio State's India Gateway. Topics of focus included visits to highly regarded institutions, faculty development, women in STEM and industry collaborations.

He partnered with Nikhil Tambe, PhD, director of India Gateway, to forge new relationships with a variety of organizations.

“The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is a key partner to India Gateway with significant shared interests in India,” said Tambe, who is also a department alumnus.

“After the successful week and half with solid interactions that Professor Singh and I participated in while at the institutes, meeting with their top leadership, we are now looking to build on some of the ideas that were seeded.”

“Professor Singh’s visit, along with other visits by faculty members are all part of a larger engagement drive and I am looking forward to them."

Conversations with senior leadership at academic institutes focused on collaborative engagements in India and the effectiveness of a consortium model.

At the Indian Institute of Technology – Hyderabad and the Indian Institute of Information Technology – Hyderabad, Singh addressed a group of young faculty and budding entrepreneurs from the local start-up ecosystem and spoke about Industry-University Research Collaborations in Automotive Technologies Leading to Innovation.

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n Pune, Singh visited the Cummins College of Engineering for Women, dedicated to developing women leaders in engineering and technology, and affiliated with the 120-year-old Maharshi Karve Stree Kshishan Sanstha, an institution exclusively for women’s education. Singh shared his knowledge on embedding elements of real-life engineering in future curriculum while interacting with students, faculty and the dean.

Singh engaged academic partners, addressing students and faculty in mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

In Chennai, Singh caught up with Ohio State collaborators at Mahindra & Mahindra and addressed a group of engineers at the Mahindra Research Valley as an invited keynote speaker for its technical talk series called “Guruspeak.”

Singh served as the distinguished Donald Glower Chair at Ohio State for 15 years until his retirement in 2014. He is a fellow of four professional societies (ASA, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Automotive Engineers and Institute of Noise Control Engineering - USA). He has received the American Society for Engineering Education’s Ralph Coats Roe Award (2013) for outstanding mechanical engineering educator and notable contributions to the profession.

Excerpts reposted from the Office of International Affairs.