It is the Diamond Jubilee of IIT Madras and the Department of Mathematics is proud to showcase its achievements through all these years.
To begin with, to highlight its international reputation, one may point to the fact that the Department has been in the Top 200 Mathematics departments according to the QS World Rankings, ever since its inception. Over the years, time and again, the Department has demonstrated its achievements, through continuous and consistent efforts in contributing to the growth and development of mathematics, both in India and abroad. The main objectives of the Department have been to pursue high quality research, to train young minds to nurture their skills in mathematics, and to serve the needs of the society in particular and the country at large, by means of applying the knowledge of mathematics nece...
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It is the Diamond Jubilee of IIT Madras and the Department of Mathematics is proud to showcase its achievements through all these years.
To begin with, to highlight its international reputation, one may point to the fact that the Department has been in the Top 200 Mathematics departments according to the QS World Rankings, ever since its inception. Over the years, time and again, the Department has demonstrated its achievements, through continuous and consistent efforts in contributing to the growth and development of mathematics, both in India and abroad. The main objectives of the Department have been to pursue high quality research, to train young minds to nurture their skills in mathematics, and to serve the needs of the society in particular and the country at large, by means of applying the knowledge of mathematics necessary to produce technology for daily use. Towards achieving these goals, we have been immensely benefited by our core strength, viz., the faculty members (retired/current) of the Department, who have contributed significantly in each of the aspects outlined above. To substantiate this, for example, currently, the numerical strength of the Department is thirty seven, while the publication count (on MathSciNet, the primary and perhaps the unique indicator for mathematical publications) over the last five years is about 350 (which is, approximately, 70 publications/year). Presently, the Department has expertise in the following broad areas of Mathematics; Algebra and Number Theory, Analysis, Combinatorics, Optimization, Theoretical Computer Science, Differential Equations and Applied Mathematics, Geometry and Topology, Probability, Statistics and Stochastic Processes.
Notwithstanding the traditional strengths of the Department that have been outlined above, mention must be made of the many consultancy and sponsored research initiatives of the faculty members, especially in the past five years. For instance, faculty colleagues have been awarded several projects from SERB/DST and industry. More specifically, in past three years, twenty of our colleagues have been awarded MATRICS projects. To provide a perspective, this is the only Mathematics Department in India to have such a large number of recipients of this scheme.
Impact across the Globe:
A number of faculty members of the Department collaborate with various universities across the globe. Colleagues and collaborators from India and abroad visit the Institute and share their knowledge and expertise via seminars, workshops, thematic lecture series and group discussions. Such visits have evolved into joint-Ph.D. programs. The Department has MoU with several prestigious Universities such as ERASMUS, TU-Kaiserslautern, Copelands and RWTH-Aachen to mention a few. The Department has organized eight GIAN courses (in collaboration with Foreign Faculty) in last two years (2016-2018). The prestigious SPARC project has been awarded to two faculty colleagues of the Department. This project enables mutual faculty and student exchange, where an emphasis is placed on textbooks or monographs as an important research output. As part of the outreach initiatives, faculty colleagues are involved in developing videos and web courses for online teaching with a view to reaching the length and breadth of the country as MOOC courses via NPTEL/PAL. Needless to say, these courses have attracted a lot of students both in India and abroad both for their content as well as the treatment of the topics. Faculty colleagues have published books both at the text book level as well as monographs, and some of these are prescribed texts in universities in India and abroad.
To further bolster our strength, as well as to open up new research avenues of current interest, the Department is planning to start two independent centres, viz., Centre for Data Mathematics and Centre for Quantum Analysis. Both these centres will aim at producing human resources in these emerging areas in which the role of mathematics is vitally important. It is envisaged that these centres will serve two purposes: first, to encourage collaborations from both India and abroad, via seminars/conferences/workshops which, in turn, are expected to provide a congenial research environment for young minds working in these areas. Secondly, it will cater to the current need of the industry, as well as serve as incubating high quality research. To maintain a vibrant research environment, the department organizes various activities, which are listed as follows: weekly events like Colloquium Talks, Discrete Mathematics Seminar, Algebra Seminar and Geometry & Topology Seminar; annual events like FORAYS (catering mainly to students from schools and colleges) and Ramanujan Day (being held as a national conference). The Department also conducts an annual In-house Symposium and occasional Special Seminar series.
The Department offers three vibrant and dynamic programmes to train young minds: Two years Master of Science (M.Sc.), Two years Master of Technology (Industrial Mathematics and Scientific Computing) (M.Tech. (IMSC)) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). The Master of Science programme, running successfully for the past sixty years, aims at mainly training the students to pursue a research career in Mathematics, where advanced electives are offered even from the third semester onwards. At the end of this programme, the students generally find themselves doing doctoral research or pursue higher education in mathematics, in India or abroad. Currently around 70 students are enrolled into this programme. The objective of the two-decade old Master of Technology programme, is to impart students with necessary skills to pursue industry vocations after providing sufficient back ground in mathematics. A variety of courses catering to the needs of industry are offered in this programme, and in the last year, every student is involved in a year-long project related to problems of the industry, the solutions to which involve some expertise in mathematics. Owing mainly to the rigorous training, at the end of the programme, the students find themselves placed in top-notch companies with attractive pay packages. Currently, we have forty five students enrolled in the programme.
The Doctor of Philosophy programme trains students to pursue high quality research in pure as well as applied mathematics and/or to undertake problems posed by the industry at large. During the first year, a number of advanced level courses are offered in the various specializations, to improve the mathematical maturity of the students to face future challenges. Graduating Ph.D. students either take up post-doctoral assignments in India and abroad, and/or are selected as teachers in several institutes of national importance, universities and engineering colleges, while some join industry for research and development. Currently, we have around 120 students enrolled into this programme.
Apart from these, the Department offers several courses to cater to the need of engineering students. In particular, two core courses for B.Tech. in their first year are offered, wherein the total strength is around 1100 students, involving 12-14 faculty colleagues. In the second year, seven electives in mathematics are taught, where the students choose the electives based on their engineering discipline. Further, the Department has initiated a B.Tech. upgradation programme, where the engineering students will be given a rigorous training in applied mathematics, in order to make them eligible for a dual degree (BTech + MTech) in (Enggdiscipline+IMSC).
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