Malayali faculty at IIT Bombay among winners of national award for best teachers

New Delhi: Thirteen college faculties, including a Malayali, have been selected for the National Award for the best teachers in the field of higher education. 

Raghavan B. Sunoj, hailing from Thiruvananthapuram and a professor of chemistry at IIT Bombay, is one of the recipients of the prestigious award constituted by the Ministry of Education. 

The awards will be presented on the occasion of Teachers' Day on September 5 at a ceremony held at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi.

Four awardees, including Prof. Sunoj, are teachers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs Dharwad, Kharagpur, Bombay and Gandhinagar). 

The award consists of Rs 50,000 and a silver medal.

Sunoj is the son of Peroorkada native Mani and National Teacher Award winner KV Vasandhakumari. After completing his primary education at St. Joseph's School and later studies at University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Sunoj obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Sciences in Bengaluru.

After pursuing his research at Ohio State University, he joined IIT Bombay as a lecturer at the age of 29. His wife is Dr. Vijayashree, a civil engineer. The couple have a son, Darshan.

Dr Sunoj had been bestowed with the prestigious 'Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology' in 2019 by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CISR).