Prof. S.P. Venkateshan  obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1977. After spending three years at Yale University, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in 1982. He retired as Professor and Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2012. Subsequently, he served IIT Madras as Professor Emeritus till November 2016. He has taught subjects related to heat transfer, thermodynamics, measurements, and computational methods. His research interests include radiation heat transfer, conjugate heat transfer-experimental and numerical, measurement of thermophysical properties by inverse heat transfer methods, and instrumentation. He has graduated 30 doctoral candidates and 25 master's candidates. He was also Head of Regional Sophisticated Instrumentation Centre (RSIC) at IIT Madras. In addition to more than 200 published research papers to his credit, Prof.Venkateshan has also authored several books.