Ashok Jhunjhunwala obtained his BTech (1975) from IIT Kanpur and MS (1977) and PhD (1979) from the University of Maine, USA. He was Assistant Professor at Electrical Engineering Department, Washington State University, USA (1979-81), and Assistant Professor (1981-90) and Head (1988-2001) at the Electrical Engineering Department, IIT-M, Chennai. He became Head of Optical Communication Lab (1985) and Telematic Lab (1987) in the Electrical Engineering Department of IIT-M. Presently he is a Professor of the Department and has taken an initiative to make it one of the most cohesive Department of the institute.

Academic and Research Achievements: At the beginning of his career at IIT-M, Professor Jhunjhunwala served as Head of the Guidance and Counseling Unit (1983-85) of the Institute and virtually created this organization. His areas of research are optical communication, computer network and wireless communication where he has significantly contributed in many dimensions. For the last six years, he has been the head of TeNet group of IIT Chennai and has incubated technology companies at IIT Madras. He has published about twenty research papers in national and international refereed journals, and written eight books/monographs.

Other Contributions: Over the last few years Dr Jhunjhunwala has been on Board of several private and public companies including State Bank of India, VSNL, BSNL and BEL. He has been on governing councils of several institutions including JNU, CSIR Labs and leads public-private initiatives like Centre for Excellence in Wireless Technology, Mobile Payment Forum of India, Rural Technology and Business Incubator, National Internet Exchange of India and IIT-M Research Park. He is a member of Scientific Advisory Committee of Prime Minister. He has edited several special issues of different journals, like Journal of IETE, Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research, etc. He is presently a Member of INSA Council (2008- ).

Awards and Honours: Professor Jhunjhunwala is the recipient of Professor SN Mitra Memorial Award of IETE (1995), Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1997), SS Bhatnagar Award (1998), Millennium Medal by CSIR (2000), Dr P Sheel Memorial Lecture Award of NAS (2001), Silican Indian Leadership Award from California (2001), Padma Shri (2002), HK Firodia Award (2002), Dataquest IT Pathbreaker Award (2003), FICCI Award (2004), etc. He was Governor, International Council for Computer Communication Inc (1999-2005). He is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (1994) and National Academy of Science (India), Allahabad (1999).