Arrival of Aadya

Our daughter Aadya (means "Unprecedented" in Sanskrit) arrived on October 9th (Friday), bringing us a bundle of joy. Apparently she brought us some luck too. We had our home in Dallas on market for sale for more than a few months, and slowly we were getting disheartened as no acceptable offers were seen. All of a sudden, the same day Aadya was born and when we all were absorbed in that special episode of life, our real estate agent called me and forwarded a decent offer from a buyer. I had to quickly put things together to negotiate, finalize, and clinch the deal. Fortunately, I could find time to conclude and sign the contract before I left Dallas on Monday.

In September, as the expected due date of 9th October for our daughter's arrival was nearing, I was getting a bit nervous hoping that the baby will wait until October. While it was more convenient for me to plan my travel to Dallas in October than in September because of my tight schedule at Kellogg, the more compelling reason for my hope was different and perhaps a bit romantic !!

Our son Vedant (means "Scholar" in Sanskrit) and both Neelima and myself were all October-born, and no prizes for guessing that we wanted our daughter too to be born in October. Of course, now we see that people do not believe us when we say that it was not a deliberate plan and the "October family" just happened. By the way, Shwetha (Neelima's younger sister) too is an October-born and we certainly want both our kids to get her intelligence, focus, and determination and follow her in her accomplishments.

Here is the picture of Vedant with Aadya on the day she was born. Many of our friends and relatives have appreciated the names to be very beautiful and charming. In fact many have asked us if (and some even assumed) it was me who came up with the names because of my reading and interest in Sanskrit and Telugu literature. So, how did we arrive at these names? It was simple for me while surprising for many. It was Neelima who first thought of the names. I just accepted them as I could not think of any other names more beautiful !!

Three years ago, within the three minutes Vedant was born he was placed in my hands. It was such a peerless joy that I could see the minutes melting away quickly, transforming into hours and then days and then months and years as he grew up fast by the time Aadya arrived. Every moment of my thrill of seeing him crawl the first time, and then walk and speak,and then run and eventually play football with me has been preserved. But, now while I miss him a lot I also feel doubly sad to miss all those special moments with my daughter. These days Neelima and I talk about this a lot and then just feel better that our hard work and sacrifices will certainly create even more larger opportunities for them.

And, what else better can we give to our kids than a solid foundation of our cumulative experience, knowledge, and wisdom, over which they can build greater things for the world to benefit.

An unprecedented honor

It was around 10.30 in the night and I was working seriously on my course assignments. The phone rang and it was my mother from India. I could immediately sense the tremble in her voice due to some surprise or shock, and became concerned. But then, after what I heard form her, it was my turn to be surprised. She said my picture with a profile was just published in the local newspaper that morning (it was morning there in India when she called). My mind went blank for a split second; then it quickly ran through all the wildest possible reasons how in the world
that could happen !!! The funniest thought that came to my mind was whether someone made some mistake in advertising about the missing persons !!!! But then I thought who will even try to publish about me as missing, when everyone in my family knows where and how to reach me in two seconds in this age of technology!! It sometimes fascinates me how fast the brain can process numerous permutations and combinations of information within a split second.

It turned out, my alma mater National Institute of Technology - Warangal (NITW - formerly Regional Engineering College or RECW) ran an article in the newspaper on the distinguished alumni of the institution and they profiled me among the twenty or so such graduates in the last 50 years. NITW is celebrating its Golden Jubilee this year and ran the article with the title "Apoorva Medhavulu" which means "Unprecedented Laureates" (see below the article).

I could not but contain my thrill for a moment on such a rarest of rare honor. I could realize that if I felt that way, how much my parents must be on the top of the clouds. My mother told me that she cried out of joy when my father first noticed and showed the article to her. Next day, as I flew to Dallas just in time for the arrival of our baby, Neelima and her mother looked up the publication on the Internet and were very excited. And, what a thrill as this happened just the day before our daughter Aadya (means "Unprecedented" in Sanskrit) was born. In the past week, as things settled down and I returned to Chicago, I wrote to the Dean of NITW how much I was elated and equally humbled at the honor. I feel I do not yet deserve such a distinction to be placed among stalwarts, as I have so much more to accomplish. Every institution and gathering that I went so far to explore, I always found great minds and inspiring personalities; compared to them I am just a midget.

But, now that the words have been spoken and the recognition has inadvertently been granted, it has become my responsibility to live up to the expectations and show the path to the future
alumni. It is such a heavy burden to carry and its weight can be felt by only those who earn it!!!

Want to be a professor or a student?

How does it feel to be a student after being a professor? How does it feel to do homeworks, assignments, and projects after being a professor? These were the kind of questions, in different variations, I face these days.

My response surprises majority of my questioners. It is much harder and more challenging to be a professor than to be a student. And it is much more fun to be a student !! Of course, my current fun filled experience as a student is certainly augmented by an extraordinary student life environment created at Kellogg.

But in general, what is so difficult about being a professor? After all, teaching is not that hard. In the past five years, whenever I tell people that I am (was) a professor, more than 80% of the time they ask me, "what do (did) you teach?". Only the awared ones, rather rarely, would ask me, "what is (was) your research subject?". People often tend to attribute the job of a professor to only teaching classes. There were several occasions when my own friends, relatives, and acquaintances said, "what a cool job you have with no pressures and hassles...you just have to teach classes and spend rest of the time with the family....you get so much vacation including the summer...and so on". And, in fact majority of students think the same about the professor. I think the opinion is formed as they see only the frontend - what the professor does in class in front of hundreds, while they are not aware of the backend role - what the professor and the team does in his/her research lab. In my career as a professor, I saw that I was spending 75% of my time and efforts on my research program, 20% on teaching, and 5% in administrative activities and service to the scientific community. Many do not realize that a research lab run/led by a professor is like a start-up company. While young faculty are given some seed money to start the research lab, they are responsible to raise money through grant writing and industry collaborations to build and financially sustain their research programs. I am only understating the challenge when I say that only 1 out of 10 grant proposals are funded by the federal funding agencies (NSF, DARPA, NIH, etc) or the industry research consortiums (SRC). And all researchers - young & experienced, from top tier institutions & not so great schools, alone & collaborative teams - have to compete for the grant money. That makes the money raising part of the research program most challenging and that consumed a significant portion of my time and efforts.

As the inputs (finances) will not flow unless until a credible research program is built through valuable outputs (quality publications and innovations), it becomes imperative to find good problems, solve them, and publish the work. This in turn requires the assistance of quality graduate research students (PhD and MS students), which is always a kind of gamble. I have never come across a professor who has not burnt his/her hands in recruiting a PhD student. When a prospective PhD student is smart and intelligent, we often find the student wavering or undependable or lackadaisical. And, if the student is enthusiastic about research and is determined and hard working, we often find the student lacking the required intellectual capabilities. Even if we find someone with the desired attributes, we often find them lacking good soft skills (communication and writing skills) making it hard for the professor to walk the student through the research quagmire.

Rarely do we find an ideal student, and when we find, it is a great pleasure to advise and lead such students. Among the dozen or so students I advised in their theses/dissertations I was unlucky to get only a few great students. A world renowned researcher once told me that it is much more worse to have a bad PhD student than to not have a PhD student at all. I learnt the
lesson only the hard way. A few bad research students costed me much more than they could ever realize. And, perhaps my soft nature in hiring and firing did contribute to the cost.

There are many more ingrained challenges in a professor's job that is hard to explain in this space. For example, how to find a good research problem/project that can be acceptable to the scientific community and that can further enrich the ever growing body of knowledge? (no one tells you what to pursue and more importantly what not to - you have to make the call). Who are the right people, across the world in academia and industry, with whom one can build successful collaborations or partnerships? These are but only a few of the several challenges that many times we find overwhelming to handle.

Having experienced the above, I find it a bit relaxing to get into the role of a student. Of course, one cannot stay as a formal student forever and is eventually required to take up a job (perhaps for the simple reason that one has to feed the family and pay the bills !!!). I indeed look forward to taking up a much more challenging career after my MBA and continue to be an informal student, as I believe that every profession demands one to be a constant student of the knowledge and the surroundings.