Personal Man Page

I was born in Madras, India, on the 17th of November, 1965, into a South Indian (Tamil) Brahmin household - the fourth born, of four male children. I spent my childhood and primary schooling in Chittaranjan, a small town in West Bengal (an Eastern State in India), which is around 200 miles from Calcutta. My father was an electrical engineer in the Indian Railways/Railroad; Chittaranjan is well-known for the manufacture of electric engines in India. If you are a railroad enthusiast, take a look at the Virtual Railroad's home page; here are some GIF images of trains. Enjoyed playing and following sports from an early age, with tennis, cricket and table tennis (TT) on top of the charts. Started playing table tennis at the age of around ten, and achieved some level of proficieny and success in it during my high school and college years.

We moved to Bombay in 1976, and lived there till 1982. I completed by middle schooling in Bombay, before, yet again moving, this time to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (a Northern State), where I graduated from high school. After my schooling, I headed to Institute of Technology, Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, in 1984, where I spent my freshman year. I took the IIT-JEE exam (again) in 1985, and chose to join the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at IIT Bombay. Had a wonderful time at IIT, both in terms of academics (or lack thereof;)) as well as extra-curricular activities. After graduating in 1989, I worked for a year as a Systems Analyst in a steel company, before heading West! Got my M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering at Oregon Graduate Institute (1992), and thereupon, I worked as a research consultant to Endochronics Inc., a research and consulting company in mechanics and materials. I joined the Ph.D. program in Theoretical & Applied Mechanics at Northwestern University in January 1994. I passed the Ph.D. qualifiers in mid-1995 and successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis on May 8, 1998: officially graduated on June 19, 1998.

I was a post-doctoral research fellow in Theoretical & Applied Mechanics at Northwestern University from Jan 1999 to July 2000, and continued research on meshless methods and partition of unity-based numerical methods. After briefly exploring ``Quant.'' jobs for Ph.Ds on Wall Street, I was fortunate to have multiple offers in industry and academia by May 2000. Currently I am a research associate in the Princeton Materials Institute at Princeton University, and in January 2001, I will be joining the faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis. Off the academic-track, I am an avid runner and marathoner; someday, I hope to join the ranks of a triathlete too.

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