Guest lectures at K'08

Douglas Osheroff
Professor of Physics & Applied Physics
Stanford University

J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood Professorship in Physics

Nobel Prize Winner in Physics(1996) -
Discovery of the superfluidic nature of 3He.

Born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington, a logging town in the Pacific Northwest, Osheroff attended public schools and earned his Bachelor's degree in Physics in 1967 from Caltech. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1973. His Ph.D. thesis work resulted in the discovery of three superfluid phases of liquid 3He. These phases are neutral analogs to the superconductors, but with greater complexity in their order.

Leaving Cornell in the fall of 1972, he spent the next fifteen years in the physical research division at AT&T Bell Laboratories, the last six as the head of their Low Temperature and Solid State Research Department. Here, in collaboration, he worked on studies of the newly discovered superfluid phases of liquid Helium-3, the nature of nuclear spin order in solid 3He, and made the first observations of weak localization in thin disordered metallic films.

In 1987 he came to Stanford University, where his research still focuses on the properties of condensed matter near the absolute zero of temperature. He has also served as chair of the Physics Department at Stanford from 1993-96, and again from 2001-04.

In 2003 Osheroff served as a member on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which determined the causes of the accident that led to the destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia during re-entry on 1 February, 2003.

Osheroff has received numerous awards for his research. These include the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Award (1976), the Oliver E. Buckley Prize (1981), the MacArthur Prize Fellowship Award (1981), Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching (1991, Stanford University) & the Nobel Prize for Physics. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.


Prasad Ram

Head and Director of R&D
Google India

Dr. Prasad started his career as a researcher at Xerox PARC, where he led the research on Digital Rights Management technology, which was later licensed to Microsoft. Prasad Ram received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California, Los Angeles in 1993. Prasad received his B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1987.

At Google, India, he is responsible for the creation of new Google Search, Ads, and Community technologies for global users and innovative products for the Indian consumers. Prasad was previously the CTO of Yahoo India, where he was responsible for providing strategic direction, launching a number of products such as HotJobs, Audio Search, and Podcasting and developing key technologies for vertical search and behavioral targeting.

David Pope Anderson

Research scientist
Space Sciences Laboratory
University of California, Berkeley

Adjunct Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Houston
Director, SETI @ home Project

Anderson was born in 1955. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from Wesleyan University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 1985 to 1992 he was an Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Computer Science Department, where he received the NSF Presidential Young Investigator and IBM Faculty Development Awards.

Initially, his research focused on distributed systems for handling digital audio and video in real time. He later worked at Sonic Solutions, where he developed the first distributed system for digital audio editing, and at Tunes.com, where he developed web-based systems for music discovery based on psychometrics, acoustics, and other models.

In 1995 he joined David Gedye in creating SETI@home - a large volunteer computing project. From 2000 to 2002, he served as CTO of United Devices. In 2002 he created the BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing project, which develops an open-source software platform for volunteer computing. The project is funded by NSF and is based at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. BOINC is used by about 40 projects, including SETI@home, Einstein@home, Rosetta@home, and Climateprediction.net.

Mr Vinod K Dasari

Chief Operating Officer
Ashok Leyland Limited

Vinod completed his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and a Masters in Engineering Management from McCormick School of Engineering, both from Northwestern University. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Engineering from University of Louisville.

Prior to Ashok Leyland, Vinod was Joint Managing Director of Cummins India Ltd. where he has laid a strong emphasis on various cost reduction measures, enhancement of supply chain to meet customers’ requirements and overall growth in business. He has successfully driven an innovative initiative - TurboKaizen, which blends Six Sigma and Kaizen to drastically improve performance. Vinod commenced his career with the General Electric Company in 1986.

After completing his MBA in 1992, he joined Timken USA as Senior Business Analyst - Manufacturing and Strategy and then moved to Timken’s Indian operations as Director of Manufacturing and Technology. In 1998, he was appointed Managing Director of Timken India. He served as the President of the Global Railroad business of Timken USA for two years, before joining Cummins in 2002. In his role at Timken, Vinod is credited with bringing about significant changes in these organizations and leading them into profitability after a period of sustained losses. Vinod serves on the Boards of Automotive Coaches & Components Ltd, Gulf Ashley Motor Ltd, Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd and Irizar-TVS Ltd.

At Ashok Leyland, he is heading the Company’s Manufacturing, Domestic Marketing, Defense, Engine Business, Strategic Sourcing, Project Planning, Telematics, IT and Corporate Quality Engineering Divisions.