This summer started with the visit of our Chancellor Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma), to twenty cities in Japan, US, Canada and South America. Infact during Amma's visit two years ago the Indo-US Initiatives began. During the visit this summer many academic leaders from prominent universities came to meet Amma. Many new initiatives in education and research were discussed during these meetings. Some of the distinguished visitors who came to meet Amma are:
• Professor Satish Tripathi, Provost, University at Buffalo, SUNY, NY  
• Professor Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences & Physical Sciences, Harvard University
• Professor Ashok Agrawala, Director of the Maryland Information and Network Dynamics (MIND) Lab, University of Maryland
• Professor Amit Sahai, Associate Director, Center for Information and Computation Security, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles

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Talks and Visits:

• 13th June 2007: Senior Academicians from Amrita University visited Columbia University, New York to sign the MoU for Amrita - Columbia Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Research. Columbia University was represented by Dr. Nick Derk, Senior Vice President and Dr. Ponisseril SomaSundaran, Director, NSF/IUCR Center for Surfactants and La Von Duddleson Krumb Professor.
•21st June 2007: Senior Academicians from Amrita University met with Dr. Satish Tripathi, Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dr. John Thomas, Dean, School of Management, UB, SUNY, NY to finalise the agreement on Amrita - SUNY Joint Dual Masters Degree Program.

• Mrs. Maneesha V. Ramesh, Dr. Krishnashree, Dr. Vallath Nandakumar visit partner US universities:
     Ms. Maneesha is the lead for the project funded by the European Commission, called WINSOC (www.winsoc.org). She presented her research work titled: "Using Wireless Sensor Networks to Detect Rainfall Induced Landslides" at these universities. During these meetings the activities and upcoming programs of the Indo-US centre were also reviewed.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
18th July 2007
Host: Dr. Srini Devadas (Electrical and Computer Engineering)


• University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
11th July 2007
Hosts: Dr. N Narayana Rao is Edward C. Jordan Professor(Electrical and Computer Engineering), Dr. Jose Schutt-Aine(Electrical and Computer Engineering), Dr. Nick Holonyak (John Bardeen Chair Professor), Dr. Milton Feng (Nick Holonyak Jr. Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering), Dr. Nitin Vaidya (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Dr. Zhi-Pei Liang (Electrical and Computer Engineering) & Dr. Kent Choquette (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

• University of Maryland
9th July 2007
Host: Dr. Ashok K Agrawala (Professor, CMPS-Computer Science)


• Purdue University
5th July 2007
Hosts: Dr. S. Chandrasekar (Professor), Dr. Nagabhushana Prabhu (Professor and Interim Head of Industrial Engg), Dr. Pankaj Sharma (Assistant Director of Discovery Park), Dr. Melba M. Crawford (Director of Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing and Chair of Excellence in Earth Observations) & Dr. Venkataramanan (Rahgu) Balakrishnan (Professor and Associate Head of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering)

• University of Texas at Austin
29th June 2007
Host: Dr. Tony Ambler (Chairman of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)

• University of Iowa, Round Table Conference
2nd July 2007
Hosts: Dr. Gregory R. Carmichael (Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies) & Dr. Karl Kammermeyer (Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering). A roundtable discussion on Global Community & Diversity was held among Amrita University and the University of Iowa. The Panel members were: Donna Katen-Bahensky, CEO of U of I Hospitals & Clinics for Healthcare, Meredith Hay, VP Research U of I, for Education; Dick Myers for Public Service; Walter Reed, Director of Human Rights for the State of IA for Human Rights, the Moderator was State Representative Swati Dandekar, and the Guest Of Honor was Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge.

• University of California, Los Angeles
19th June 2007
Host: Dr. Amit Sahai (Associate professor of computer science)


• University of California, Irvine
19th June 2007
Hosts: Dr. R Jayakrishnan (Assistant Professor Dept. of Civil Engineering and Institute), Dr. G. P. Li (Director, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology), & Dr. Kuo-lin Hsu (Assistant Adjunct Professor, Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (CHRS)

• University of California, San Diego
18th June 2007
Host: Dr. Rajesh Gupta (Professor and QUALCOMM Endowed Chair Department of Computer Science and Engineering)

• Standford University
15th June 2007
Host: Dr. Paulraj Arogyaswami (Professor, Research, Electrical Engineering)

• University of California, Santa Cruz
14th June 2007
Hosts: Dr. Darrel D. E. Long (Kumar Malavalli Professor, Computer Science Dept. Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Education) & Ms. Rebecca Sweeley (Director, Office of International Education)

• University of California at Berkeley
13th June 2007
Hosts: Dr.Srini Narayanan (Leader, AI Group, ICSI and Adjunct Associate Professor), Dr. Eric Brewer (Professor of Computer Science) and Mr. Joyojeet Pal

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•"Wireless Networks Technologies and Approaches", by Dr. Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, Professor of Computer Science, New York University
• "Energy Efficient Routing for Ad Hoc & Sensor Networks", by Dr. Ravi Sankar, Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of South Florida

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Distinguished Lectures:

          Dr. Ponisseril Somasundaran, Director, NSF/IUCR Center for Surfactants and La Von Duddleson Krumb Professor, Columbia University, Topic: "Emerging Technologies in Nano and Material science". He also inaugurated the Induction programme of Amrita School of Business for 2007 batch students.
         Dr.Sumit Sarcar, Armstrong Distinguished Professor of Communications Technology & Management, Richard T. Farmer School of Business, Miami University, gave a talk on "Role of IT functioning in Management".
        Dr.Todd Pesek, MD, Director Center for Healing Across Cultures and Assistant  Professor, Health Sciences, Cleveland State University. 

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Upcoming Events:

Indo-US Symposium on Data, Information and Knowledge Spectrum: ISDIKS - 2007 - Chaired by Dr.Bharath Jayaraman and co-chaired by Mr. Anand Shenoy
Place: Amritapuri, Kerala, Date: December 13 - 15, 2007

Upcoming Indo-US full time Courses (August - December, 2007):

• "Introduction to Statistical Methods" by Dr. Sriram Devanathan, Associate Professor, Ph.D. (Iowa State University).
• Course in "Cyber Security" by Dr. Vallath Nandakumar, Ph.D. (UC Berkeley).
• "Pattern Recognition " by Dr. Ramamoorthi, Professor, Michigan State University.
•"Automative Engineering" by Josh D Freeman, M.S (University of Oklahoma).