Ramgopal Rao to join BITS Pilani as Vice Chancellor

Prof. Rao served as the Director of IIT Delhi during 2016-2021 and is currently the Pillay Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering

Former Director of IIT Delhi, Prof Ramgopal Rao will be joining as the Group Vice Chancellor for the BITS institutions in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa, Dubai and Mumbai. He will be replacing, Prof Souvik Bhattacharyya who will be leaving on March 10, 2023,

Sharing the announcement, Prof Rao wrote on Twitter: “After 25 years of being a part of the #IIT system in various capacities both at IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, it's time to move on and take up new responsibilities. I will be joining as the Group Vice Chancellor for the #BITS institutions in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa, Dubai and Mumbai.”

“I will be operating out of the BITS #Pilani campus,” he wrote.

As per an announcement shared by BITS Pilani, Prof Souvik Bhattacharyya, Vice Chancellor- of BITS Pilani, will be leaving on March 10, 2023, to pursue other interests. During his 6 years stint at BITS, Prof. Bhattacharyya was instrumental in developing a very strong research culture at the Institute and made a significant contribution in the area of quality faculty hiring, Alumni Relations, Innovation & Incubation of startups.

Prof. Rao served as the Director of IIT Delhi during 2016-2021 and is currently the Pillay Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Before joining IIT Delhi as the Director in April 2016, Prof. Rao served as a P. K. Kelkar Chair Professor for Nanotechnology in the Department of Electrical Engineering, at IIT Bombay.
During his tenure as the Director, Prof Rao has successfully improved IIT Delhi rankings across all Campus ranking platforms by implementing a multipronged approach towards faculty recruitment, research funds, social media engagement, international and national collaborations, industry projects, alumni connect, endowment fund, start-up incubation, creation of 13 new centres of excellence and 10 new academic units. Also, in his time as Director, the Institute has made significant progress on all aspects of Institute functioning.

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