PROF THOMAS KAILATH WON THE US NATIONAL MEDAL OF SCIENCE

മലയാളി പ്രഫസര്‍ക്ക്‌ അമേരിക്കയിലെ

പരമോന്നത ശാസ്‌ത്ര പുരസ്‌കാരം

            Prof. Thomas 'Tom' Kailath was on Friday awarded the US National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama.For his scientific achievement in that country, with past winners including Steve Jobs and Dave Packard, among others. The awards are announced by the incumbent President, in this case Barack Obama, who said in statement that "These scholars and innovators have expanded our understanding of the world, made invaluable contributions to their fields, and helped improve countless lives.”

           Professor Thomas Kailath received his Bachelor of Engineering (Telecom) at the College of Engineering in Poona (now Pune) in 1956, and moved to the US the next year after being accepted at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, for a Master’s, and then doctorate, degree. He becomes only the sixth person of Indian origin to receive the award. Others who have got it before him are New York University’s Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan (Probability Theory), Purdue University’s Rakesh Agrawal (Energy Innovations), and North Carolina State Univeristy’s B. Jayant Baliga (Energy Innovations), Calyampudi R. Rao (Mathematical and Computer Sciences), and Arun Netravali (Technology).

He became a naturalised citizen of the US in 1976; along the way, he married Sarah Kailath (nee) Jacob in 1962, with whom he had three children – Ann, Paul and Priya. In 1992, he established the Sarah Kailath Chair in India Studies at the University of Berkeley, California. Sarah passed away in 2008 after an extended battle with cancer.

He joined Stanford University in California as an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1963 and made full Professor in1968. In 1988, he became the first holder of the Hitachi America Professorship, a position he held through June 2001. A month later, he was recalled to the position in an Emeritus position that he continues to enjoy.

Prof. Kailath’s research and teaching at Stanford have ranged over several fields of engineering and mathematics, with a different focus roughly every decade: information theory, communications, linear systems, estimation and control, signal processing, semiconductor manufacturing, probability and statistics, and matrix and operator theory.

While he has mentored an outstanding array of over a hundred doctoral and postdoctoral scholars, one the most famous of them, also of Indian origin, is Professor Arogyaswami Paulraj, widely considered the father of WIMAX and the pioneer who made high-speed wireless such as 4G possible.

In fact, Paulraj credits Kailath’s lectures as a visiting speaker at the Indian Institute of Technology as the inspiration for doing a PhD. It was Kailath was eventually instrumental in bringing Paulraj – then with the Indian Navy – to Stanford University where he became his thesis supervisor.In 1992, Kailath and Paulraj together applied for a US patent titled ‘Distributed Transmit – Directional Receive DTDR’ which was granted in 1994, according to India Abroad newspaper. The patent was the building block for increasing bandwidth in wireless systems using multiple antennae for input as well as output.

Prof. Kailath’s joint efforts with his students have yielded more than 300 journal papers, several of which have received outstanding paper prizes; they have also led to a dozen patents and to several books and monographs, including the major textbooks Linear Systems (1980) and Linear Estimation (2000).Kailath is also a member of the highly-respected National Academy of Engineering as well as the National Academy of Sciences, both of which are key advisory bodies to the US government.

പത്മഭൂഷണ്‍ ജേതാവായ മലയാളി പ്രഫസര്‍ക്ക്‌ അമേരിക്കന്‍ സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ പരമോന്നത ബഹുമതി. സ്‌റ്റാന്‍ഫോര്‍ഡ്‌ സര്‍വകലാശാലയിലെ ഇലക്‌ട്രിക്കല്‍ എന്‍ജിനീയറിംഗ്‌ വിഭാഗം പ്രഫസറായ തോമസ്‌ കൈലാത്ത്‌ (79) ആണ്‌ സന്‍യസ്‌-എന്‍ജിനീയറിംഗ്‌ രംഗത്തെ മികവിന്‌ അമേരിക്കന്‍ സര്‍ക്കര്‍ നല്‍കുന്ന പരമോന്നത ബഹുമതിക്ക്‌ അര്‍ഹനായത്‌. പ്രഫ. തോമസിനൊപ്പം ഒന്‍പതു പേര്‍ക്കു കൂടി യു.എസ്‌. നാഷണല്‍ മെഡല്‍ ഓഫ്‌ സയന്‍സ്‌ എന്ന പുരസ്‌കാരം പ്രസിഡന്റ്‌ ബരാക്ക്‌ ഒബാമ പ്രഖ്യാപിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്‌. ഈ വര്‍ഷം അവസാനം വൈറ്റ്‌ ഹൗസില്‍ നടക്കുന്ന ചടങ്ങില്‍ പുരസ്‌കാരം സമ്മാനിക്കും.പുനെയില്‍ മലയാളി കുടുംബത്തില്‍ 1935 ല്‍ ജനിച്ച പ്രഫ. തോമസ്‌, 1956 ല്‍ പൂനെ സര്‍വകലാശാലയില്‍നിന്നു ബിരുദം കരസ്‌ഥമാക്കി. അമേരിക്കയിലെ മസാച്യുസെറ്റ്‌സ്‌ ഇന്‍സ്‌റ്റിറ്റ്യൂട്ട്‌ ഓഫ്‌ ടെക്‌നോളജി(എം.ഐ.ടി.)യിലായിരുന്നു ബിരുദാനന്തരബിരുദ പഠനം. അവിടെ നിന്നു തന്നെ ഡോക്‌ടറേറ്റും നേടി. എം.ഐ.ടിയില്‍നിന്ന്‌ ഇലക്‌ട്രിക്കല്‍ എന്‍ജിനീയറിംഗില്‍ ഡോക്‌ടറേറ്റ്‌ നേടുന്ന ആദ്യ ഇന്ത്യക്കാരന്നെ റെക്കോഡും പ്രഫ. കൈലാത്തിന്റെ പേരിലാണ്‌.1963 ല്‍ സ്‌റ്റാന്‍ഫോര്‍ഡ്‌ സര്‍വകലാശാലയില്‍ അസോസിയേറ്റ്‌ പ്രഫസറായി ചേര്‍ന്നു. അഞ്ചു വര്‍ഷത്തിനു ശേഷം പ്രഫസറായി. അനവധി ഗ്രന്ഥങ്ങളുടെ രചയിതാവാണ്‌.

                          Prof. John Kurakar