Dear Community Members,

After publishing the 1st, 2nd & 3rd SPOTLIGHT bulletin covering  the published achievements of our community members, Shri Pran Tiku, MA, Shrimati Sharda Cherwoo, NY, Shri Anil Kaul, OK, Shri Sanjay Razdan, FL, Shrimati Lalita Kaul, MD, Shri Vishal Wanchoo, WI, Shri Ashtosh Ganjoo, PA., Dr, Hira Lal Fotedar, OH , Shri Jeevan Zutshi, CA , and Dr. Hari Bhat, NY ., I am now pleased to present the 4th SPOTLIGHT bulletin. T his bulletin covers the published achievements of our following community members:
  1. Dr. Vijay Kuchroo, MA
  2. 'Padma Shri' Dr. Predhiman Krishan Kaw
I would encourage you to email us such published success stories of our community members so that we can share this information with our members. You will soon see a Spotlight section on our KOA website.
 
With warm wishes,
Deepak Ganju
 
Community Spotlight
1. Vijay Kuchroo, MA

D r. Vijay K. Kuchroo was born in Kashmir, India and obtained a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Hisar, India. Subsequently, he specialized in pathology at the department of Veterinary Pathology, University of Queen sland, Brisbane (Australia) where he also obtained a Ph.D. in Pathology in 1985. Dr. Kuchroo received the Fred Z. Eager Research prize and medal for his Ph.D. research work at the University of Queensland.
 
Dr. Kuchroo came to the United States in 1985 and was at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda as Fogarty International Fellow for a year before joining the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School as a Research Fellow in the fall of 1986. Dr. Kuchroo joined the Center for Neurologic Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1992 where he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 1996. Dr. Kuchroo currently holds a title of Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Associate Immunologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston. Dr. Kuchroo has published over 100 original papers and numerous review articles.
 
Dr. Kuchroo is on the Editorial Boards of the journals Autoimmunity and Journal of Experimental Medicine and an ad hoc reviewer for a number of Immunology related journals. He was a permanent member of the grants review board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, New York and is currently on the scientific review board of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, New York . Dr. Kuchroo is also an ad hoc reviewer for the research grants for various study sections at the National Institutes of Health. Based on his contributions, Dr. Kuchroo was awarded the Javits Neuroscience Award by the National Institutes of Health in 2002. Dr. Kuchroo recently became the first recipient of the Samuel L. Wasserstrom Professor of Neurology Chair at Harvard Medical School.
2. Dr.Predhiman Krishan Kaw

Dr.Predhiman Krishan  did his matriculation at the age of 11, Ph.D (IIT Delhi) at age 19, Assoc Prof at Princeton University at age 24, Full tenured Prof at Princeton at 26-27, went back to India as Director of Plasma Physics Reaserch  was awarded Padma Shri in 1985 , and now Indian National Science Academy has awarded  the INSA Albert Einstein Research Professorship.  The professorship is the highest scientific honour given by INSA
 
Dr. Pradhiman K. Kaw was born on January 15, 1948. He had a brilliant academic record securing first position in his Master’s degree. He completed his Ph.D. degree at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1966 in a span of 2 years and had the distinction of being the first student to be conferred a doctoral degree by the Institute. He joined the University of Princeton as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in 1967 where he discovered the phenomenon of laser induced anomalous heating of plasma and filamentation instability. He subsequently joined the research staff of the University of Princeton in the year 1969. Dr. Kaw came back to India in 1971 as an Associate Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and became Professor in 1974. Concurrently, he held the positions of National Lecturership, Visiting Professorship at Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Consultant at University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of Cornell.
 
He was involved with the setting up of Institute for Plasma Research – a National level Institute- in 1986. Under his leadership as the Founder Director, the Institute is recognised for its work in several frontier areas of research in Plasma Physics.
 
Dr. Kaw was first to demonstrate the coalescence instability in a chain of magnetic islands, critical to Tokamak Plasmas. He investigated the stability of dissipative drift waves in sheared magnetic fields, which led to the crucial re-examination of the toroidal effects in drift instabilities. In his more recent work, he has found novel non-abelian plasma oscillations in quark-gluon plasmas- a subject of considerable interest in high-energy heavy ion collision experiments.
A number of honours, titles and distinctions have been bestowed on him, including Honorary Doctor of Science by the Gent University of Belgium in 1991. He is a Fellow/Member of several national and international Science Societies/Academies and Committees.
 
During his distinguished career as a scientist, Dr. Kaw has written over 150 research papers. He is presently the Associate Editor of Journal of Plasma Physics (U.K.). In recognition of his distinguished contributions to the growth of science in this country, he was awarded Padma Shri.
Please email us published success stories of our community members so that we can share this information with our members.
Please email Deepak Ganju  at dganju@earthlink.net or Arun Koul at akoul@ftghome.com .