 Professor P. R. Mahapatra has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore since 1970. His teaching and research interests lie in the broad fields of aerospace and physical sciences and engineering, covering aerospace and electronic systems, aviation studies, optical and microwave systems, and atmospheric and space sciences. His specific research areas include atmospheric radars and remote sensing, application to aviation weather surveillance and safety enhancement, radar systems for general, aerospace and imaging applications, signal processing, design and optimization, filtering and tracking methods, high-frequency and ray tracing methods, inertial, satellite, hybrid and relative navigation, landing systems, air traffic management systems, and radar astrophysics involving the study of asteroids.
Prof. Mahapatra has spent multiple tenures as regular and senior Research Associate of the US National Research Council, and has conducted frontline research at the US NOAA, the University of Oklahoma, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology and NASA. He has published extensively in international journals and conferences, with over 120 research papers to his credit.
As a mark of international recognition, Prof. Mahapatra received the 1993 Donald G. Fink Prize, the highest-level award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for his work on aviation weather surveillance systems. He has subsequently authored the first ever book on the same subject, published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) in the UK. He is also a recipient of the DRDO Academic Excellence Award for 2002 from the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India.
Besides his academic functions, Prof. Mahapatra has discharged a number of other responsibilities at Indian Institute of Science. These include managing the advanced technology programmes and academic-industry interactions, and establishment of entrepreneurial activities at the Institute.
Prof. Mahapatra also involves himself in numerous professional activities at the national and international levels. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and is a member of the Academy's Sectional Committee on Aerospace. He is a Vice President of the Aeronautical Society of India, a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, and a Professional Member of the US Institute of Navigation. Prof. Mahapatra has been involved with planning, monitoring and reviewing many of the major national programmes in aerospace, electronic and meteorological systems under the auspices of DRDO, ISRO, MIT, DST, CSIR, IMD, and Civil Aviation authorities. He has lectured extensively before national and international audiences on aviation and atmospheric and space sciences. |