Prof. Shiv G. Kapoor
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I owe a lot of what I am today in the academic field to my doctoral advisors Prof. Shiv G. Kapoor and late Prof. Richard E. DeVor. They both were students of late Prof. Sam Wu, a majority of whose students went on to be stalwarts in the area of manufacturing research in the US.
I first heard of the Dick and Shiv team (as they are known in the manufacturing circles) in Jan 2001 when I got admitted to UIUC for my M.S. in Industrial Engineering. I used to work for Tata Motors (a leading automotive company in India) at that time. When my work colleagues from Ingersoll Milling Machine Company, IL, came to know that I was about to join UIUC, they suggested that I should consider working for Dick & Shiv while pursuing research in the area of advanced manufacturing. However, I was keen on pursuing the area of operations research for my M.S. Therefore, I ended up with another advisor but their comment did impress upon me that both of them were well-respected by the manufacturing industry.
I first heard of the Dick and Shiv team (as they are known in the manufacturing circles) in Jan 2001 when I got admitted to UIUC for my M.S. in Industrial Engineering. I used to work for Tata Motors (a leading automotive company in India) at that time. When my work colleagues from Ingersoll Milling Machine Company, IL, came to know that I was about to join UIUC, they suggested that I should consider working for Dick & Shiv while pursuing research in the area of advanced manufacturing. However, I was keen on pursuing the area of operations research for my M.S. Therefore, I ended up with another advisor but their comment did impress upon me that both of them were well-respected by the manufacturing industry.
My first interaction with Prof. Kapoor occurred in the context of the "Design of experiments" course that he taught in the fall of 2002 followed by the "Time Series analysis" course that he taught during the spring of 2003. As I interacted with him in the classroom, I started to get a better idea of the research work that he did with his colleague Prof. DeVor. In Fall 2003 when I decided to pursue my PhD, they offered me the opportunity to work in the area of micro-machining of carbon nanotube composites.
During the first semester of my PhD program (Fall 2003), I was given the opportunity to develop and teach the Engineering Economics course (IE337). What started as a novice attempting to teach soon became a turning point in my life, because it showed me that I was really passionate about students. Though I was a little rough around the edges during this first teaching stint, it was this teaching opportunity that instilled in me a desire to be in academia. Once it was clear that I had decided to purse a career in academia, Profs. DeVor and Kapoor started to intentionally prepare me for what was lying ahead - be it giving me more exposure to writing proposals, developing me as a teacher, or training me to lead the students as a post-doc. I am particularly thankful for the times when they were intentionally tough on me during those training years, since those were the incidents that enabled me to develop as an academic professional.
Now as I launch my own boat into the academic waters, my desire is to "reproduce" what they did with me during my time at Illinois.
During the first semester of my PhD program (Fall 2003), I was given the opportunity to develop and teach the Engineering Economics course (IE337). What started as a novice attempting to teach soon became a turning point in my life, because it showed me that I was really passionate about students. Though I was a little rough around the edges during this first teaching stint, it was this teaching opportunity that instilled in me a desire to be in academia. Once it was clear that I had decided to purse a career in academia, Profs. DeVor and Kapoor started to intentionally prepare me for what was lying ahead - be it giving me more exposure to writing proposals, developing me as a teacher, or training me to lead the students as a post-doc. I am particularly thankful for the times when they were intentionally tough on me during those training years, since those were the incidents that enabled me to develop as an academic professional.
Now as I launch my own boat into the academic waters, my desire is to "reproduce" what they did with me during my time at Illinois.
Some comments from Prof. DeVor that I will always remember.
- "What is one hour in the life of a graduate student?" -- A usual saying when a graduate student says "oh this experiment/analysis will take up a lot of time".
- "Johnson -- if I were to ask you to put a quarter into a jar every time you made a writing error, I will be a millionaire by the time you graduate".
- "Time for a Cadillac meeting" -- (i.e., a meeting wherein he drives to wherever I am in his Cadillac and goes over corrections in my dissertation).
- "Johnson, for me it has always been about the students" -- when I asked Prof. DeVor about the motivation for being in academia.
- "You should train yourselves to catch these errors, the quality of work makes an impression on the reviewers" -- whenever I missed commas, full-stops etc. while writing the list of references.
- "You need to stay on top of things- never drop the ball" - whenever I dropped the ball !
- "Johnson, the student is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY not ours" -- Prof. DeVor delineating my role as a post-doc.