By Nitish Thakor, B. Tech, EE, H3
I am going to give much delayed thanks and express my gratitude to Prof Bapat, professor of Aeronautical Engineering.
This story begins before coming to IIT. All along, I really thought I would go to medical school and become a doctor. Then the aura and excitement of IIT and JEE came along. I got swept into that fervor. A good rank, admission into EE and the opportunity to go to IIT Bombay not far from my home in Andheri was too good to pass up. I saw that as a huge privilege even then and passed up my medical school aspirations. However, once reaching IIT, and then shortly thereafter I had ‘buyer’s remorse’ – Did I do the right thing? I should have been a doctor! Still, the joy of living on campus, the friendships I made, living in the challenging intellectual and social atmosphere was sufficient for me to forget medical school.
But my chance to revisit that dream of doing something medical came in the fifth year with the chance to do the B.Tech. project of choice. I went back to my passion – anything medical, particularly medical devices and electronics, as a way to bridge the engineering and medical worlds. I started to look for project mentors. I found Professor Bapat in Aeronautical Engineering. He opened up his laboratory, matched me to one of his graduate students who mentored me, and I built a heart rate monitor, an ECG machine in his laboratory. I scoured articles in journals and books in the library and came across a research paper, which in turn opened my mind to doing a Ph.D. and I ended up with the authors of the paper as my thesis advisor at the University of Wisconsin. It was my B. Tech project that got me a scholarship with him. I continued the same B. Tech. work using the then ultramodern microprocessors, and later on designing IC chips to build implantable pacemakers and ending up as a junior professor in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
My career, professional journey, began in the library at IIT and in the laboratory of Professor Bapat. Since then, I have reflected so many times that it was that chance to find a mentor and a laboratory and a project that paved the way for my life and career. Alas, I did not go back to the campus for many years and never got back in touch with Professor Bapat and I regret that I never thanked him for the opportunity he gave me.
My career as a professor, researcher in the field of medical devices and heart and brain technologies has roots in the education that I got at IIT. I use all the fundas from circuits to signal processing to electromagnetics (even the opportunity to work on the first generation minicomputers – ours was the first privileged batch). But it was the B.Tech. project that was most impactful.
I want to get over the regret of not thanking my teachers and the university that gave me all the education and all the character building that has brought me where I am. I’m going to do so by giving back: I have visited several IITs as an advisor and I have given many lectures and given advice and scholarships to many IIT students.
Now I will be giving money for scholarships and the legacy project. That would be the best use of my assets that I can think of. Thank you, Professor Bapat and all the teachers at IIT.
IIT Bombay 1974 Reunion 