ISRO chairman S Somanath receives PhD from IIT-Madras at the age of 60

Chennai: Age is just a number, they say. At the age of 60, ISRO chairman S Somanath has lived up to this old adage by successfully completing his PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M).

To honour Somanath’s contributions to Indian science, especially his role in the successful launch of India’s third unmanned moon mission, the institute relaxed its rule and awarded the doctorate degree to Somanath on the dais at its 61st convocation ceremony.

Somanath’s thesis is titled ‘Vibration response studies on modified hyper elastic material models for application aerospace systems’ and he was handed over the degree by IIT-M director Prof. V Kamakoti, and Dr Pawan Goenka, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT-M.

The ISRO chairman has so far been bestowed with 10 honorary doctorates for his work in the space sector, but Somanath had always wanted to “earn” one on his own and he enrolled for PhD when he was involved with the development of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.

“Since I was immersed in that work then, I couldn’t take forward my PhD. It is a real good fortune that I could complete it after having assumed the office of Chairman of ISRO. It is really a great honour,” Somanath said.

“When I stand here, I look at a young village boy who after topped in science in the state (Kerala), had no courage to write an entrance examination for an engineering in an institute like IIT. Still, I kept a dream. It is to graduate from an institution like IIT-M,” Somanath added.

After receiving the Governor’s Prize, ME student Dhananjay Balakrishnan spoke about the war in Palestine and the need for engineers to be aware of companies they work for aiding imperial powers like Israel.

“There is a mass genocide going on in Palestine. People are dying in large numbers and there is no end in sight. Why should we bother by this, you may ask? Because stem as a field in itself has historically been used to advance the ulterior motives of the imperial powers such as Israel,” he said.

Engineering students work hard to get to top-level jobs at tech giants, which offer them very lucrative space and great benefit. “However, these Tech Giants control various aspects of our life today, as you know, better than anyone. Many of these prestigious companies are also directly and indirectly implicated in the war against Palestine for providing state of the technology that's used to kill citizens,” the student added.

At the convocation whose chief guest was 2012 Nobel Laureate (Chemistry), degrees were awarded to 2,636 graduates including 764 B.Tech (of whom 27 with Honours), 277 Dual Degree B.Tech and M. Tech, 481 M.Tech, 151 M.Sc, 42 M.A, 50 Executive MBA, 84 MBA, 236 M.S, and 107 Web-enabled M. Tech for executives.