Tête-à-Tête with Prof. Kishore Chatterjee
26 December 2021 | Sheel Shah, Amol Shah, Adil Khan
Professor Kishore Chatterjee is currently serving as the Head of the Electrical Engineering Department and has been associated with our department for the past 23 years. In the past, he has served as the Organizing Vice Chairman, Joint Entrance Examination, the Associate Dean (IPS) and Chairman for GATE (2017), and is presently also the convener of the institute committee looking into undergraduate curriculum revision. We decided to have an informal conversation with him on his life experiences and also his work as the head of the department. Read on to know more...
You are now the head of one of the largest departments in the top institute of the country. How has your life journey been - could you describe the major milestones in your journey till date?
I am originally from Kolkata, and after my higher secondary education, I went to REC Bhopal for my undergraduate studies. Those days, they were called RECs (Regional Engineering colleges), now they are named as NITs. In a given REC, there used to be seats distributed for all the states and Union territories of the country. I got exposed to real India this way once I moved to the REC. I am sure you also had the same experience once you joined IIT Bombay. I did my BTech from there and subsequently I went to one of the oldest colleges in India, the Bengal Engineering College, Howrah, later renamed as the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology (IIEST), which is again an institute of national importance similar to the IITs and NITs. There I did my ME in Power Electronics and Machines and immediately after that I joined IIT Kanpur for my PhD. There I spent around 5-6 years and soon afterwards I got an offer from IITB and joined as a faculty member here in December 1998.
Having been a professor in our department, is there any difference in your life after becoming its head?
Not really, as far as our department, and the culture of IITB is concerned, there is hardly any difference. Between a professor, an associate and an assistant professor, there is absolutely no hierarchy. The standing of an assistant professor, a full professor or an HoD are all at the same platform. The process of the selection of the HoD is such that the faculty members give their preferences for who they want to be the head for this cycle. The Director of the Institute gets an impression of the faculty members who are being preferred, and based on that the head is selected by him. So what I want to stress over here is that the process is very democratic, and the brief answer to your question is that there is hardly any difference between being a faculty and the HoD, as far as my interaction with other faculty members is concerned.
So, how has your typical working day changed after becoming the department head?
Yes, that has changed certainly because I have to do several routine things from the morning to the evening which the department requires. So my professional life has changed somewhat and I have two duties to perform - first as the chair of the department, and second as the regular faculty member of the Institute. The function as an HoD includes the routine things pertaining to issues concerning students and faculty, academic and non-academic matters etc. The other function of the HoD, not just for me, but for anyone who is heading any academic unit, is to give a vision to the progress of the department, such as how the faculty members would like to see the department to grow, and in which direction in 5 to 10 years down the line. Hence I am giving utmost importance in understanding the aspirations of the faculty colleagues and the students of our department, and more importantly how to realize them.
Can you describe your vision for the department and its future to us?
If you see the evolution of the department from the past to the present, when I joined in 1998 we used to have not more than 15 to 20 PhD students, and the MTech students also used to be around hundred, and the number of undergraduate students used to be around 200-300. Now, our total student strength is around 1100 and out of this 400 are undergraduate students while the rest 700 are postgraduate students. As you can see from the ‘90s to 2021, the complexion of the department has changed primarily from an undergraduate teaching institute, to an undergraduate teaching as well as a research institute. Not only that, 20 years back, the number of faculty members used to be around 30, now it is 70. And the increase in the number of faculty members has happened in the last 10 years or so. And we took that bold step, because we firmly believed that if we kept on recruiting young minds the department would grow in the right direction. I can now definitely say that we took the right decision. As far as research is concerned we have been doing extremely well. Now our mandate is that not only we should involve ourselves in blue sky research but also we need to engage in research which has an immediate impact on society. By society, I mean the society at large and also the industry, so that the industry can take our innovation and make a product out of it. IIT Bombay is trying to enable such an ecosystem, if you know there is a centre called SINE. SINE is that entity where IITB faculty as well as students can establish their own startup. It will help you out as far as infrastructure is concerned for 2-3 years and then you can take off on your feet. SINE is not a part of the EE department but it shows that the focus of the institute has changed over the years towards doing meaningful research.
Would you like to elaborate on any new initiatives planned for the curriculum, just like the new DD specializations that were introduced two years back?
This is a very pertinent question; the institute is reviewing its undergraduate curriculum and I happen to be the convener of the curriculum revision committee. We presented some of our suggestions before the senate recently, as well as in the institute faculty meeting. Whether it will be accepted in toto or not, that I am not sure, but so far we have received encouraging feedback. The basic philosophy of the new curriculum is like this, we are trying to ensure that all the department core courses get over by the fifth semester. After that, students will have the freedom to choose from department and institute electives, and from what we are trying to evolve, interdisciplinary minors, such as combining electrical engineering and physics, or electrical engineering and biology. This is still in the thought process, but the bottom line is that once a student has completed the minimum number of core courses required to be called as an engineer of their trade, they can choose a path of their choice. This is because we are seeing that the future lies in interdisciplinary skills, and so we should not restrict all the students only to their core branches. In addition to this we are also trying to bring in more exposure to the society - by increasing the number of courses in areas like humanities, social sciences, management, entrepreneurship and design - skills which are essential for innovation and to make one a complete engineer. These are not just the regular courses, but we are thinking to redesign them to make them more relevant for engineering, and also to ensure that our students can have an exposure to the society at large. Another focus is on bringing in more of synthesis into the curriculum. At present, most of the courses are focused on analysis; courses focused on synthesis, on creating something new, come only towards the end of the program through BTP. We are unsure of how to implement it yet; but what we are trying to bring in is more of ‘synthesis’ in the curriculum. In that direction, our alumni, who have formed the Maker Bhavan Foundation (MBF) have given us some fund to develop a collaborative classroom and an experiential lab. In a normal classroom, the information flow is from the teacher to the students with some discussion. In a collaborative classroom, a problem will be given, the students will form groups and they will break the given problem into modules, and each group will have to come up with their solution, and subsequently the ‘deliverable’ would be synthesized. Similarly, in an experiential lab, students will be asked to design and develop semi-engineered hardware prototypes. In a normal lab session, experiments are already set, here you need to design your experiment - you need to develop the product. This is in line with what I have mentioned regarding bringing in more synthesis, while keeping the rigor of analysis in place.
What do you think are the most important issues you face while working as the HoD, especially about the department or its students?
As far as the last two years are concerned, quite a few students had problems, especially because of online learning, being at home, and moreover the absence of peer learning. However, if you remove the issues due to Covid, I don't think there is any major problem as far as the student body is concerned. However, as far as the aspirations of the department are concerned, a major issue is about the infrastructural requirements. If we want to grow, we need to invest in infrastructure development. If we hire a new faculty, we have to give him/ her space to carry on with their work - research activities. As far as Mumbai and IIT Bombay is concerned, space is an issue, but still we are working hard to get more facilities developed. Having said that, we can see the phenomenal growth we have achieved in the past 8 to 9 years, in the number of faculty members, number of labs and other facilities which we have built. Yes, there may have been some delays here and there, but ultimately we have realized what we wanted. In the coming future, if we want to grow more, we need to develop the right infrastructure, and so this is the main issue of concern, which we are working hard to resolve. One source we are vigorously exploring for support on this is our alumni, and the initial response from the alumni community has been very encouraging.
How has the pandemic affected the teaching activities of the department in the last couple of years?
The thing is that when you are delivering a lecture in an online mode, you never know how receptive the students are to your teaching, or how much content of your delivery they are able to absorb. In a live lecture, you can look at the faces of students, understand and immediately change track if needed - it is not possible in an online setting. It is easy to say that it is always possible for students to respond online, but in front of 150 students in the meeting, everyone cannot speak out together as it will inevitably lead to chaos, and hence the result is that everyone keeps quiet. This means that the faculty cannot understand if the material being taught is being assimilated by the students or not, and hence there is a disconnect that happens. In any case, we have now learnt how to go about teaching in an online mode, we know how to conduct courses online, but still it slows down the pace. Technology definitely helps, but ultimately one-on-one human interaction cannot be replaced.
Going forward along the lines of the previous question, how have the research activities of our doctoral students been impacted due to the pandemic?
In the first lockdown, we got really affected, especially those students whose research is experimental in nature and dependent on building hardware prototypes or requiring usage of instruments. They really suffered and lost at least six to seven months of their time. Even others also suffered a lot. In an online mode, you cannot have that kind of an interaction with your guide, which you can have in an in-person setting. But not only the interaction with your guide, for a PhD scholar, peer learning is very important. During my PhD days, in my day to day work, I learned a lot from my peers and seniors. The nitty gritty of problems being faced during experimentations, small issues that you face in your work - these are the things that you need to learn from your peers, and this got lost completely during the lockdown. Now that almost all our PhD students are back, this problem no longer exists, but yes, they lost quite a bit of their valuable time.
How much has your research been affected due to the increased workload after becoming the department head?
Earlier I mentioned that I am still a regular faculty member of our department, I am still teaching and I also have to guide PhD students. I would put it this way, that my students have been affected due to my work as the HoD, research is still going on as my students are doing the research. But I feel sorry for them, as earlier I could attend to them whenever they wanted, but now I cannot spend that much amount of time with them. For example, if they give me a paper to read, earlier my turnaround time used to be a week or so, now it has increased substantially. But they have been accommodative and cooperative, I have tried to have discussions with them and continue my work with them after regular office hours.
We noticed that you had completed your PhD under Professor BGF, how does it feel now that you are his successor as the department head?
Interestingly, Prof. BGF was a PhD student at IIT Bombay, and later joined IIT Kanpur as a faculty member while I was a research scholar over there. Although he was my PhD supervisor as well as teacher, our relationship was more of a friend. The first time when I met him, I still remember – a misty cold morning in Kanpur, he said to me, “Don’t address me with a ‘Sir”. Once I joined IIT Bombay, BGF had also joined back here by then, and our relationship has remained to be that of a friend. It’s an honor to take over charge from BGF who led the department from the front for two terms as the HoD.
Lastly, would you like to give any message to the students?
A friendly suggestion is that, of late, students are getting more and more worried about their future, material things like - what will I do after graduation?, what will be my salary? - and similar things right from their first or second year. I think this is not the right attitude. During your stay over here you should enjoy your academic life – every bit of it, and not waste your precious time in thinking about material gains. The curriculum and pedagogy that you are getting here is remarkable, and you will not be able to realise the importance and worth of what you are getting unless you step into your professional career. You should involve yourself and engage yourself in various extracurricular activities like debates, drama, sports, seeing good movies, reading good books. Reading a book in isolation and reading a book in a campus environment is completely different. After reading a book, you can go and tell your friends about it and discuss your views on the book with them. So take maximum advantage of the environment that IIT Bombay provides. You are not only living on a good campus but also living in the company of good peers as well as experienced faculty members. You tend to approach faculty members only for academic problems or for functional problems. The faculty members of the department are eager to engage with you in all possible ways – be it personal, cultural or in whatever ways social beings interact with each other. Earlier we used to have a film club, and the students and faculty members used to watch films together, but now we are living in silos, we have our own mechanisms of seeing movies. Let us try to break this barrier and let us live as a closely knit community – and take the maximum benefit of living together in a campus.