PEC bids farewell to Prof Arora

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 15

After a tenure of five years as director at Punjab Engineering College (PEC), Prof Manoj K Arora, was accorded a farewell by the institute in the presence of all Deans, heads of various departments and staff members here on Monday. He is all set to shift to his parent institution,

Indian Institutes of Technology, Roorkee.

With a stint of three decades of teaching, research and administrative experience in academic institutions in India, the UK and the USA, Arora was credited for the initiation and execution of 45 sponsored research and consultancy projects with funding of over Rs 8 crore, publication of two books and 16 book chapters, 230 research papers in international and national journals and conferences, 50 invited talks and keynote addresses during his tenure.

He is credited for initiating young faculty to write projects, research papers and undertake industrial consultancy. On the grounds of development of infrastructure, Punjab Engineering College has attained the next level of facilities in research, administration and sports.

He established Centre of Excellence in Geospatial Technology with ESRI Inc Design Innovation Centre jointly with Panjab University by utilising grants received from the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Dr Uma Batra, the acting Deputy Director will be Director, Punjab Engineering College (ad interim). Before handling Deputy Director’s office, she held the office of Dean, Sponsored Research, and Dean, Faculty Affairs, in succession.

Batra is also presently head of the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering. Besides administrative credentials, she is an established researcher in the field of biomaterials, corrosion behaviour of metals and ADI.