Ratan Tata elected to National Academy of Engineering

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of the Tata Group, has been elected as a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering of the US along with 10 new foreign members.

This is the highest professional distinction accorded to an engineer in the US.

Ratan Tata has been selected for his outstanding contributions to industrial development in India and the world, the National Academy of Engineering said in a statement.

Along with Ratan Tata, the NAE elected 69 new members, including eight Indian-Americans.

NAE, the top American engineering institute, honours those who have made outstanding contributions to ''engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,'' and to the ''pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education. ''

The Indian-Americans elected to the NAE include:

• Anant Agarwal, president, edX (online learning initiative of MIT and Harvard University) and professor electrical engineering and computer science department in Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
• Murty P Bhavaraju, senior consultant PJM Interconnection who developed probabilistic reliability evaluation tools for large electric power systems;
• Ashok Gadgil, director and senior scientist, environmental energy technologies division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (for engineering solutions to the problems of potable water and energy in underdeveloped nations);
• Ganesh Kailasam, research and development vice president and global research and development director, performance materials division, Dow Chemical Co (for development of processes for production of high-performance polymers, including polyetherimides);
• Vijay Kumar, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Pennsylvania (for his contributions in cooperative robotics, networked vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles, and for leadership in robotics research and education);
• Bal Raj Sehgal, emeritus professor of nuclear power safety, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (for his contributions to predicting accident behavior of nuclear reactor systems);
• Pradeep Sindhu, vice chairman, chief technical officer, and founder, Juniper Networks, Sunnyvale (for his contributions to technology and commercialisation of internet protocol routing); and
• Krishna Singh, president and chief executive officer, Holtec International, Marlton (for engineering and business leadership for increased power plant efficiency and improved safety of spent nuclear fuel storage worldwide).