Professor Banmali Rawat has been appointed as an Honorary Visiting Professor by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, India.

Rawat, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, will be collaborating with faculty in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering. The competitive visiting professor position has an initial term of one year, during with time Rawat plans to work with faculty from IIT Roorkee to establish a Microwave Application Research Center and an Optical Sensor Technology Research Center.

"It's quite an honor to be selected as an honorary visiting professor," said Rawat.

Rawat's main focus during the upcoming year will be developing collaborative research programs that can serve as the foundation for long-term collaborations with IIT Roorkee.

"They are very interested in that," Rawat said. "Once we are able to do something concrete then they will extend the collaboration."

During Rawat's initial appointment, he'll make multiple visits to India to develop seminars, conferences and workshops with students and faculty at IIT Roorkee.

IIT Roorkee was established in 1847, making it the oldest engineering college in India. In 2001, the college was declared an Indian Institute of Technology. Indian Institutes of Technology, or IITs, are the most prestigious engineering institutions of India, known for producing tech and business leaders in India and abroad.

"Establishing collaborations with top engineering schools around the globe is a good part of our nationally competitive engineering programs," said Manos Maragakis, dean of the College of Engineering.

Rawat is also a graduate of an IIT, and during a recent visit to his alma mater he met professors from IIT Roorkee and the seeds of the collaboration were born.