S.P. Venkateshan obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1977. After spending three years at Yale University, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1982. He retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in November 2012. Subsequently, he served IIT Madras as Professor Emeritus till November 2016. Since December 2016, he has been Professor Emeritus and Advisor at IIITDM Kancheepuram. He has continued teaching and research during this period. Prof. Venkateshan has taught subjects like heat transfer, thermodynamics, measurements, and computational methods. His research areas are radiation heat transfer, conjugate heat transfer–experimental and numerical, measurement of thermo-physical properties by inverse heat transfer methods, and instrumentation. He has supervised 30 doctoral and 25 Master by research candidates at IIT Madras. In addition to more than 200 published research papers to his credit, Prof. Venkateshan has also authored two books— Heat Transfer and Mechanical Measurements.Prasanna Swaminathan obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2013. After working as a postdoctoral researcher in different laboratories in the Paris region, he joined as a full-time researcher at LSPM, a CNRS laboratory associated with University Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, in 2016. His main area of interest is modeling and designing microwave-based plasma sources for the elaboration of novel materials such as CVD diamond and graphene.
