Welcome to Virginia Tech India Center for Advanced Research and Education (VT, India). We are an extended arm of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech, a public, land grant Research University
Tarun K. Sen, is Managing Director of the Post Graduate Program in Business Analytics (PGPBA) and Professor Emeritus of Accounting and Information Systems at Virginia Tech. Since September of 2017, as Managing Director PGPBA (under the Office of Outreach and International Affairs), he has led several programs in the US and in India. Along with NMIMS in Mumbai India, he recently led the development of an MTech. program in Data Science that is being offered in Mumbai. He leads the design and development of programs of various durations in data analytics programs that are currently being offered in Chennai, Mumbai, and Newport News Va. Sen joined Virginia Tech in 1985 and spent 25 years as a Professor and Associate Dean responsible for the Pamplin College of Business’ Graduate, MBA, and International Programs. He taught in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, the Northern Capital Region MBA program, and the fully online Masters of Information Technology (MIT) program. He led the successful launching of Pamplin’s first executive MBA program in the Washington, D.C. area, the MIT program in India, and the professional MBA program offered in various locations in the Commonwealth of Virginia. During his tenure, the Pamplin MBA program was ranked 35 in the USA by Financial Times and the Pamplin College of Business had over 350 students in study abroad programs across the globe.
His passion for programs in data analytics comes from his long association with research and education in the applications of analytical and data models to address business problems. Sen was active in funded research and published in leading journals, including Management Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Decision Support Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. He has been on the editorial review board of the Journal of Information Systems and has participated in several National Science Foundation SBIR review panels. While in academia at Virginia Tech he developed various data driven analytics systems including a contamination management system for the US Department of Energy, a performance management system for Virginia Department of Social Services, and a graph-based model management system for g mathematical models for a broad spectrum of business applications. He has over 30 publications, presented at over 25 national and international conferences, workshops and forums, has been a member of over 30 university and international committees, developed and taught 15 courses in the applications of data and analytical models to business problems. He has supervised several doctoral students during his academic career.
In 2002 Sen co-founded Entigence Corporation, a business intelligence consulting company in the Washington DC area and Bangalore. Entigence Corporation is a professional services company focused on providing data analytics strategies and solutions to higher educational institutions and industry. He continues to advise on new data analytics initiatives at Entigence Corporation. His current research includes the implementation challenges of university faculty systems and machine learning applications in industry.
He has a Ph.D. in management information systems from the University of Iowa, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, India, and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, India.
Lebanon, and Blacksburg, Virginia under funding from the New River Mount Rogers Workforce Development Bureau.
Rangapriya is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and heads the Marketing & Operations Advisory at Virginia Tech India has over 15 years of Senior Management experience in Large Corporates. She was associated with three leading educational Institutions in India – Swarnabhoomi Academic Institutions, Aptech Computer Education and Tata Infotech, creating significant brand equity in a short span of time for these Companies. Her core competencies include strategic marketing, framing new business initiatives, implementing systems, processes and practices for continuous improvement and standardization of existing businesses and creating best practices within business units.
Rangapriya is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and heads the Marketing & Operations Advisory at Virginia Tech India has over 15 years of Senior Management experience in Large Corporates. She was associated with three leading educational Institutions in India – Swarnabhoomi Academic Institutions, Aptech Computer Education and Tata Infotech, creating significant brand equity in a short span of time for these Companies. Her core competencies include strategic marketing, framing new business initiatives, implementing systems, processes and practices for continuous improvement and standardization of existing businesses and creating best practices within business units.
Viswanath Venkatesh, who completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota, is an Eminent Scholar and Verizon Chair at the Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech. Since Fall 2021, he is also the Director of Pamplin’s Executive PhD program. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists, both in terms of premier journal publications and citation impact (e.g., Thomson Reuters’ highlycited.com, Emerald Citations, SSRN, PLoS Biology), with a recent career ranking of 485 th (out of ~9 million scientists in all fields) and 1 st in information systems (IS). His 2021 citation impact ranking was 95 th (out of ~9 million scientists in all fields). His research focuses on understanding the diffusion of technologies in organizations and society. His favorite project focuses on improving the quality of life of the poorest of the poor in India—which he has presented in various forums including at the United Nations. The sponsorship of his research has been about US$10M. His work has appeared in leading journals in human-computer interaction, information systems, organizational behavior, psychology, marketing, medicalinformatics, and operations management, and included best paper awards (e.g., Academy of Management Journal). His works have been cited about 151,000 times (Google Scholar) and about 50,000 times (Web of Science), with an h-index of 84 and i-10 index of 137. He developed and maintains an IS research rankings web site that has received many accolades from the academic community including Association for Information Systems’ Technology Legacy Award. He has served in editorial roles in various journals. He is a Fellow of the AIS and the Information Systems Society, INFORMS.
Khaled Hassouna is the Associate Director for Curriculum Development and Associate Director for the Middle East and North Africa Initiatives, in the Center of International Research, Education and Development. In his previous post, he was the International Coordinator for the Conservation Management Institute in the College of Natural Resources and Environment. He is an environmentalist and educator, an expert in community development, sustainable environmental education and development, curriculum design, and cross-cultural relations. He works with universities, NGOs, and consultant firms in the Middle East, US, and around the world. Specializes in increasing communication and understanding between diverse groups of people, cultures, and organizational structures. He holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering, an M.Sc. in Natural Resources Management, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning.
Mr. Velusamy R is a Mechanical Engineer from MIT, Chennai and he is alumnus of ‘Wharton Business School’ and the ‘Michigan Ross School of Business’, a Technical stalwart with over 24 years of experience with Mahindra & Mahindra – India’s leading utility vehicle and tractor manufacturing company. Mr. Velusamy R was the chief architect behind mHawk – Mahindra’s first-ever high-speed diesel engine in the 2.0 lit/2.2 lit category, the mHawk engine powers several Mahindra’s flagship products, including the Scorpio, XUV5oo, Bolero, etc. The engines developed during his tenure follow stringent emission regulations, including BS 6 and E-VI. mHawk is definitely one of the defining moments of India’s Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) segment.
Some salient features of the mHawk engine include:
Migration from typical cast iron cylinder head to aluminum cylinder head, leading to Light Weight, Reduced reciprocating mass and enables elimination of Secondary Mass Balancer. In the overall Vehicle Development at Mahindra & Mahindra, Velusamy has promoted many new initiatives in both the simulation and Physical Development to achieve vehicle level attribute targets on Durability & Dynamics, Crash, and NVH in a methodical way, ensuring all the recent new product launches meeting GNCAP targets on Safety. He is the chief architect behind XUV 3oo, which is one of the recent launches of Mahindra & Mahindra bagged Safer Choice Award from the same GNCAP, scored 5 stars in adult safety and 4 stars in Child Safety.
Mr. Velusamy R is a member of SAE, he has been conferred with prestigious awards for his contributions to the Automotive Industry and one of them as ‘Champion of Chennai’ for the Powertrain field. Recently, he was named among the Top Ten Personalities in Tamil Nadu by the VIKATAN Group. Mr. Velusamy R currently serves as the Chief of Global Product Development – Automotive Division at Mahindra & Mahindra, India and he is the Vice-Chairman – SIAM Emission & Conservation Committee.
R. Gopalakrishnan is an Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd. He also serves as Director on the board of Tata Power and Tata Technologies. He has served as Chairman of Unilever Arabia, MD of Brooke Bond Lipton and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever, ED of Tata Sons and several Tata companies. He also serves as an independent Director of listed companies, Akzo Nobel India, Castrol India, and Hemas Holdings PLC, Sri Lanka. Gopal mentors few start-ups. He is actively engaged in both instructional and inspirational speaking.
Dr. Roop L. Mahajan is Lewis A. Hester Chair Professor and Director of the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech where he also concurrently holds a joint appointment as tenured professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Mechanics. He has more than 35 years of experience working as an interdisciplinary scientist and leader within both the private and educational sectors.
Mahajan came to Virginia Tech in 2006 from the University of Colorado at Boulder where he served as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, the founder director of a highly successful NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Advanced Manufacturing and Packaging for Microwave, Optical and Digital Electronics (1995-2005), and a co-founding directors of another interdisciplinary center on Micro Electronic Devices in Cardiovascular Applications (1999-2006). There, he also served as Interim Dean, College of Engineering (2001-2002) and established a state-of-the-art Nanoscale Characterization Facility. Prior to joining the University of Colorado, Mahajan worked with AT&T Bell Laboratories-Engineering Research Center, Princeton, NJ, from 1976-1991 where he conducted and led research of high caliber in the thermal sciences, including advancing the fundamental understanding of transport phenomena in vapor phase soldering, chemical vapor deposition and thermal management.
He received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 1977 and his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, India. This education throughout has been marked by distinction and superior academic performance.
Professor Mahajan is a prolific and outstanding researcher who has gained stellar reputation in both traditional academic pursuits and industrial research. During his professional career spanning a period of over 35 years, he has made contributions in a number of research areas including convective flows, transport phenomena in semiconductor manufacturing, electronic packaging, artificial neural networks, nanotechnology, humanistic engineering and most recently bio-MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems).
Roop’s research can perhaps be best summarized by the following three characteristics: (i) high quality; (ii) a seamless transition from basic to applied research, and (iii) interdisciplinary. His greatest strength is as a forward-looking bold thinker, with the pulse on the latest trends in technology. He has proven to have an unerring instinct as to where technology is going and how to get there first. He has the courage and confidence to pursue and implement his vision.
This pioneering approach and passion for excellence has won him accolades from the academics and practicing engineers alike, and has resulted in many awards and honors including the prestigious Bell Labs Fellow Award for outstanding technical contributions in advancing the manufacturing science of the thermally-based processes of condensation soldering and silicon epitaxial crystal growth and his technical leadership in using this knowledge to advance the actual manufacturing science (1989), Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for excellence in research, scholarship and creative work (1999), ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award (2002) for making outstanding contributions to the field of heat transfer, Subaru Educator of the Year Award (2002), Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award (2003) for outstanding achievements in mechanical engineering twenty years or more following graduation, and the Ralph Coats Roe Medal (2007) for lifelong contributions in communicating to the public the potential of engineering research for the betterment of society, and for contributions to engineering education as an inspirational teacher and role model to students and the 75th Anniversary Medal of the ASME Heat Transfer Division, 2013. He also received AT&T Technical Journal Great Boss Award in 1988.