Professor Patrick French announced yesterday that he would be stepping down as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University. He will be replaced by cosmologist professor Raghavan Rangarajan.
Professor French shared on Twitter a nostalgic message where he posted a before and after picture of the school. He said that he and his team had built the school from scratch. He said they started with only 9 inherited professors no administrative staff and an office in a classroom.
In another tweet, Professor French shared how the school had grown to almost100 faculty and 1000 students. He said now the school boasts of thriving Humanities, Languages, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Liberal Arts, Social Sciences, and other departments. The school also has BA/BS Hons, IMS, and PhDs. He explained that he was leaving his position to take a writing sabbatical and would return to a senior role in global strategy.
Professor Raghavan Rangarajan is a Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Undergraduate College at Ahmedabad University. He was on the faculty of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad for over twenty years before joining Ahmedabad University. His areas of research are cosmology and particle physics, and he works primarily on processes that occurred soon after the Big Bang in the very early Universe.
