Alampallam Venkatachalaiyer Balakrishnan (1922-2015) was an American applied mathematician and professor at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Education and career

Balakrishnan grew up in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India, and entered the University of Madras in the early 1940s. While there he earned a scholarship from the Indian government to study in the United States and learn to produce

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

. Upon arriving at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

, known for its film school, he initially wanted to become a sound engineer on Hollywood films. At the time, he was unable to get a position because he was not a member of any of the

guilds A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

, which controlled who was able to get a jobs. Therefore, after earning his first master's degree in cinema in 1949, he switched to

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. Balakrishnan received his

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from the

in 1950 and 1954, respectively. He has been professor of engineering and professor of mathematics since 1965 at The University of California, Los Angeles. He was chair of the Department of Systems Science in the (then) School of Engineering from 1969 to 1975, and director of the NASA-UCLA Flight Systems Research Center since 1985.

Recognition

He was a recipient of the

Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award The Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award is an annual award (since 1979) given by the American Automatic Control Council (AACC) for achievements in control theory, named after the applied mathematician Richard E. Bellman. The award is given fo ...

, which is the highest recognition of professional achievement for US control systems engineers and scientists in 2001 for "pioneering contributions to stochastic and distributed systems theory, optimization, control, and aerospace flight systems research". He has received honors and awards from the International Federation of Information Processing Society (1977), NASA (1978, 1992,1995, and 1996), and, in 1980, the Guillemin Prize in recognition of the major impact that his original contributions have had in setting the research direction of communications and control. In 2016, USC Viterbi Professor Petros Ioannou became the inaugural A.V. “Bal” Balakrishnan Chair of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering.

References

External links

UCLA faculty page

AACC profile
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Balakrishnan, A.V. 1922 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century Indian mathematicians 21st-century Indian mathematicians Control theorists USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty Indian emigrants to the United States Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award recipients University of Madras alumni Scientists from Chennai Engineers from California USC Viterbi School of Engineering alumni 21st-century American mathematicians