Ishwar Puri

Ishwar K. Puri ईश्वर कंवर पुरी
Ishwar K. Puri at a scientific meeting held in Sendai, Japan in 2011
Born	1959 New Delhi, India
Residence	Canada
Citizenship	United States of America
Fields	Applied physics, Molecular simulations, Nanomechanics, Combustion, Heat transfer
Institutions	McMaster University, Virginia Tech, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of California, San Diego
Alma mater	University of California, San Diego
Thesis	The structure and extinction of counterflow flames (1987)
Doctoral advisor	Kalyanasundaram Seshadri
Doctoral students	Ishwar Puri at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Known for	Partially premixed flames, laminar flames, magnetic fluids, nanoscale transport phenomena, mathematical biology
Notable awards	N. Waldo Harrison Professor, Virginia Tech
Website www.ikpuri.com
Notes
ASME Fellow, AAAS Fellow

Ishwar Kanwar Puri (Hindi: ईश्वर कंवर पुरी, Punjabi: ਈਸ਼੍ਵਰ ਕਂਵਰ ਪੁਰੀ) is an Indian American scientist, engineer, and academic who resides in Canada. He is dean of the Faculty of Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Education

Puri studied at St. Xavier's School, Delhi from 1964-76. Thereafter, he graduated with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering of Delhi University, Delhi in 1982. He then completed his M.S. (1984) and Ph.D (1987) degrees in engineering science (applied mechanics) from University of California, San Diego.

Career in engineering science

Puri's vision for McMaster Engineering is to invest in excellence by recruiting and retaining the best talent, marshaling resources to help the faculty, staff and students fulfill their capabilities,^[6][7][8] recognizing outstanding contributions and innovations, and efficient governance and administration.^[9] His leadership facilitated the first McMaster MOOC, which was launched through Coursera.^[10]

Prior to his appointment as dean and professor at McMaster, he served as N. Waldo Harrison Professor ^[11] and Head of the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) at Virginia Tech. He led the ESM program for nine years from 2004 through 2013.

He was a postdoctoral researcher and then an Assistant Research Engineer at the University of California, San Diego from 1987-90. In January, 1990, he was appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). This was converted to a tenure-track appointment as assistant professor in August, 1991. He was thereafter promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure in 1994, and to the rank of Professor in 1999.

He continued to serve at UIC as Director of Graduate Studies of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering programs from 1994–97, and also 1999-2000; as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies from 2000–01, and finally as Executive Associate Dean of Engineering (2001–04). At UIC, he also served on the steering committee of the UIC Institute for Environmental Studies, and helped facilitate several of UIC's micro- and nanotechnology initiatives.

In 2004, Puri moved to Virginia Tech to assume the position of professor and department head of engineering science and mechanics. He helped move that program into new convergences at the intersections of the life and physical sciences, and engineering mechanics, and promoted transformative scholarship, particularly through several new faculty hires in novel and interdisciplinary areas of applied mechanics.^[12] These efforts helped the department to be ranked fifth in the United States in the undergraduate engineering physics/engineering science category by U.S. News & World Report in 2012.^[13]

As department head, he played a leading role at Virginia Tech in the reoccupation of Norris Hall, where his department was housed, after the tragic shootings initiated by a mentally disturbed student.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]}

Accomplishments

Puri is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers^[20] and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[21] He has served as Secretary of the American Academy of Mechanics. In 2014, he was elected by his peers, deans of engineering worldwide, to serve a three year term on the executive committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council.^[22]

In 2010, his alma mater, St. Xavier's School, Delhi, honored him with the Xaverian Excellence Award for his outstanding achievements, pioneering spirit, leadership and public service,^[23] and in 2014 the school bestowed upon him its Lifetime Achievement Award for accomplishments in education and research.^[24]

In 2011, he was named N. Waldo Harrison Professor at Virginia Tech.

Scholarship

Puri is the author of over 300 archival and conference publications, reports, and book chapters in the fields of combustion, energy and transport phenomena, thermomagnetic convection and magnetic fluid transport, and the cancer stem cell hypothesis.Ishwar K. Puri, List of papers

He has edited a book on the environmental implications of combustion processes,^[25] a textbook on advanced thermodynamics engineering,^[26] now in its second edition,^[27] and another on combustion science and engineering.^[28]

Notable Papers

The structure of triple flames stabilized on a slot burner^[29] discusses the structure of a triple flame that contains three exothermic reaction zones which merge at a “triple point” and shows how these zones have different features.

Heat transfer augmentation using a magnetic fluid under the influence of a line dipole^[30] describes ferrohydrodynamic convection by examining the relationship between an imposed magnetic field, and the resulting ferrofluid flow and thus temperature distribution.

Mathematical model for the cancer stem cell hypothesis^[31] discusses how cancers can occur because of mutations in normal stem cells and presents a predictive mathematical model. It is the first work to show mathematically how repeated insult to mature cells increases the risk of cancer.

Single magnetic particle dynamics in a microchannel^[32] illustrates how the collection of magnetic microbeads in a microfluidic flow is influenced by a magnetic field, as well as the particle size, magnetic susceptibility, host fluid velocity and viscosity, and length scale.

Thermal transport across nanoscale solid-fluid interfaces^[33] shows how the nanoscale thermal resistance, or Kapitza resistance, is lowered by making a solid-fluid interface more hydrophilic.

Other contributions

Puri is a founder and mentor of NanoSpin, which is a startup that has developed a cooling system for computers and electronic devices. This cooling system uses a liquid dispersion of magnetic nanoparticles to dissipate waste heat.^[34][35]

He was invited through the Swiss Leonard Euler Center of the European Research Community of Fluid Turbulence and Combustion in 1998 and 1999 to visit the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. He was an Environmental Fellow in 1993 through the American Association for the Advancement of Science-Environmental Protection Agency (AAAS-EPA) program,^[36] and in 1992 he was a NASA/Stanford University Center for Turbulence Research Fellow.

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, he established a European-US consortium to conduct engineering student exchanges at the undergraduate and graduate levels that was funded through the US Department of Education FIPSE program. He has led an interdisciplinary program in engineering ethics.^[37] He posts a regular Twitter outreach feed on technical and academic matters.^[38]

He serves the profession by organizing workshops and meetings, for instance the 2009 Joint ASCE-ASME-SES Conference on Mechanics and Materials,^[39] and conceived the AmeriMech 2012 Mechanics in Biology Workshop series.^[40]

His outreach also includes e-seminars on nanotechnology,^[41] future energy scenarios,^[42] and other emerging issues.^[43]

He has been a TEDx speaker.^{[44][45][46][47][48]}

Topical and literary contributions

Puri writes on issues related to science and academia,^{[49][50][51][52]} and discusses innovation policy and practice.^[53][54][55]

However, his first archival publication was neither scientific nor technical, instead it was a collection of poetry written in English and published in 1982.^[56][57] A 1984 review of this book of poems, Narcissus Wept, reads, "He has something to say evidently and tries to say it with becoming gravity."^[58]

Family

Puri is the eldest child born in 1959 into a Punjabi Khatri family in New Delhi, India where he lived until his early twenties.

His father was Dr. Krishan Kanwar Puri, who retired as Department Head of Chemistry at Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, and his mother was Dr. Sushila Gaind Puri who retired as Department Head of Anesthesiology at G. B. Pant Hospital,^[59] New Delhi. The elder Dr. Puri, his father, wrote his thesis on acetin fats^[60] at the University of Münster where he received his Dr. rer. nat. degree. His mother began her career as a pioneering anesthesiologist at Lady Harding Medical College and Hospital in New Delhi.^[61]

Before marrying, his parents settled separately in Delhi in 1947 as refugees due to the partition of India. His Puri family origins lie in Ghartal village that is in Gujranwala District, now in Pakistan, and his Gaind family origins are from Pasrur in Sialkot District, also in Pakistan now.

He lives with his wife, Beth Levinson, in Ancaster, Ontario in Canada. Ms. Levinson's Jewish roots run through San Diego, California and Brooklyn, in the United States to Eastern Europe where many of her relatives were consumed and displaced by the Holocaust. They have three children.

Together, the family has established the Ishwar K. Puri and Beth R. Levinson Scholarship that enables the education of an underprivileged girl student through grades K-12 at St. Xavier's School, Delhi in India.

References

External links

• Ishwar K. Puri's Web Site
• Are our truths true?: Ishwar Puri at TEDxVirginiaTech
• Ishwar K. Puri's Google Scholar site
• Ishwar K. Puri's talks on scientific and academic issues
• Academic genealogy for Ishwar K. Puri
• Ishwar Puri at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Fluid Mechanics and Combustion Tree - Ishwar K. Puri Family Tree

Academic offices
Preceded by David S. Wilkinson	Dean of McMaster University Faculty of Engineering July 1, 2013–present	Incumbent

Deans of McMaster University Faculty of Engineering John W. Hodgins (1958-1969) Leslie W. Shemilt (1969-1979) John W. Bandler (1979-1981) Arthur C. Heidebrecht (1981-1989) Gary R. Purdy (1989-1994) Mamdouh Shoukri (1994-2001) Mo Elbestawi (2001-2007) David S. Wilkinson (2008-2012) Ishwar K. Puri 2013-

Authority control VIAF: 66550296 ISNI: 0000 0001 0910 7099 MGP: 157995