M Jagadesh Kumar has been appointed as the President of the UGC.

JNU Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar was on Friday appointed as the next chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The post of the UGC chairman fell vacant on December 7, 2021, when Professor DP Singh, who took charge in 2018, resigned at the age of 65. The post of Vice-Chairman of Higher Education Regulatory is also vacant.

M Jagadesh Kumar’s five-year term as JNU vice-chancellor ended on January 26, after which he was allowed to continue in his post by the ministry until his successor was chosen.

M Jagadesh Kumar is widely regarded for his knowledge in electronic engineering and related fields. He obtained his MS (EE) and PhD (EE) degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Between July 1994 and December 1995, he was a visiting faculty and an assistant professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Later, he moved to the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi where he became an Associate Professor in July 1997 and a Professor in January 2005. He took over as the VC of JNU in January 2016.

Kumar was born in Mamidala, Nalgonda district, Telangana. He did his Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, followed by post doctoral research at University of Waterloo, Canada.  He works in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology (nano-electronic devices, nanoscale devices, device design and power semiconductor devices).

He is currently a fellow at Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, National Academy of Sciences, India and Indian National Academy of Engineering among others. He is Chairman of the governing body of National Council of Science Museums. He has received the “ISA-VSI TechnoMentor Award”, with the award being presented by Dr. R. Chidambaram (Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India).