Bangalore, Caltech, Bangalore
Roddam Narasimha was born on 20 July 1933 in Bangalore. After an engineering education at IISc he did a PhD in aeronautics at Caltech with Hans Liepmann.
Returning to India after a successful start at Caltech, and building a local research culture, was an important decision.
Turbulence and transition
At IISc he built up aerospace research and did internationally respected work on turbulence, transition, rarefied gas dynamics and atmospheric flows.
His research on boundary-layer transition, the change from smooth to turbulent flow, and on aerospace fluid mechanics influenced both theoretical and applied aerodynamics.
Labs, students and the monsoon
He was Director of the National Aerospace Laboratories and held leadership roles at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He contributed widely to science policy, monsoon dynamics and India’s aerospace capability, and trained many students.
Deep theoretical work and national engineering missions can go together, and great institutions are built through mentorship.
Sources
- IISc tribute: Roddam Narasimha
- National Aerospace Laboratories
- JNCASR
- iisc.ac.in/events/prof-roddam-narasimha-1933-2020-a-tribute/
- nal.res.in/
- jncasr.ac.in/