Having made its choice, Firestone loudly trumpeted the name of the chosen one in full-page ads in several mainstream newspapers, including The Washington Post. "We have retained the services of Dr Sanjay Govindjee, a world renowned engineering consultant to help us in this effort," went the ads. Obviously, the company was hoping that Govindjee’s credibility would go down well with consumers.

But that was the first time many in India had heard of Govindjee. 'Govindjee who?' was the standard response when reports trickled into the land of his origin.

Govindjee teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and is acknowledged by his peers and students alike as one of the finest mechanical brains in the US. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986 and later did his MS and PhD from Stanford University. He has been an associate professor at the civil and environmental engineering department of the University of California at Berkeley since 1993 and has authored over 50 titles in various streams of mechanical engineering till date.

He also serves as a consultant to several governmental agencies and a large number of private corporations and is an active member in major societies such as the American Academy of Mechanics, American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the US Association for Computational Mechanics. Laurels include the Engineering Foundation Initiation Award and National Science Foundation Career Award.

Govindjee’s parents migrated in the 1950s to the US, where he was born and brought up. Though he is a first generation Indian American, Govindjee is proud of his Indian roots.

We wish him good luck in his new endeavour.

- nriol.com report