Structures in Turbulence: An interview with Garry Brown

Garry Brown is professor emeritus at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University. He is a distinguished fluid dynamicist, well-known for his work with Anatol Roshko where they found unexpected order within turbulent flow. He was at IISc in late 2017, teaching a course on shear turbulence with his friend Roddam Narasimha. Excerpts […]

IISc’s remarkable expansion under Dhawan

Satish Dhawan was the longest-serving Director, who transformed the Institute in many ways – from reorganising academic departments to establishing new centres and encouraging the Institute community to embrace an interdisciplinary research approach. In 1951, Satish Dhawan joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as a Senior Scientific Officer, and within a few years, he […]

Satish Dhawan (left) and Roddam Narasimha (centre), with KR Narayanan (Photo courtesy: Roddam Narasimha)

‘Dhawan introduced a new personality to IISc’: Roddam Narasimha

Roddam Narasimha is the DST Year-of-Science Professor at the Engineering Mechanics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. Narasimha, a former professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IISc, was one of Satish Dhawan’s earliest students. In this excerpt from a wide-ranging interview, he shares his memories of Dhawan.   What was […]

My Father, Satish Dhawan

Jyotsna Dhawan is a cell biologist working at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore. Recently, Connect invited her to IISc to talk about her father, Satish Dhawan, one of India’s most well-known scientists and institution builders, particularly about his life away […]

How IISc Launched Aerospace Research in India

And how its alumni shaped it in the years that followed IISc set up its Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1942 – bang in the middle of World War II. It was the year that the Nazis were to begin acting on their horrific plan for a “Final Solution”, that the Japanese military strengthened its […]

‘The Aerospace Department, Like the Whole of IISc, Was a Quieter Place Then’: Rama Govindarajan

Rama Govindarajan is a renowned scientist whose work lies in the area of fluid dynamics. The recipient of several awards, in 2007 she received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for her “original contributions to the understanding of instabilities in shear and non-parallel flows, flow entrainment, turbulent transition and small-scale hydraulic jumps.” She remains the only […]

“I Have Much Pleasure in Declaring Open the New Wind Tunnel”

On 3 February 1959, the open-circuit wind tunnel at IISc was inaugurated by the Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar. Embedded in the old Aerospace Engineering building, this wind tunnel has been responsible for testing several aircraft, including the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas, and is functional to this day. In his speech, given in the […]

Memories of a Bangalore Quartet

Malgudi, RK Narayan’s idyllic setting for his stories, may have been inspired by the Mysore of a bygone era, but its name is a felicitous blend of two of Bangalore’s oldest suburbs – Malleswaram and Basavangudi. Even in the 1970s, when I first arrived in the city, these areas retained an old-worldly charm. Few could […]

The Aerospace Department’s First Home

The old Aerospace Engineering building at IISc represents an architectural style that blends minimalism and functionality IISc is an institution with a history of more than 100 years. Not surprisingly, there are many stories here to be told. And not just about its people. There are also tales of its buildings waiting to be recounted. […]

Hans Liepmann with his wife Dietlind (Photo courtesy: Roddam Narasimha)

Hans Liepmann: The Teacher Who Had a Lasting Influence on Satish Dhawan and Roddam Narasimha

In 1964, Hans Liepmann from Caltech arrived at IISc for a term. SM Deshpande, then doing his ME in the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, remembers the “glorious combination” that resulted. “Liepmann taught our batch,” says Deshpande, now at the Engineering Mechanics Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. “We were very lucky. […]