OSU would like to get into well-defined research projects with IITs: Murthy

She also talks about the state of Indo-US education partnerships and likely effects of the upcoming US presidential election for Indian students planning to study there

Jayathi Murthy, President, Oregon State University (OSU), gives an overview of OSU’s plans of collaborations with Indian higher education institutes, the state of Indo-US education partnerships and likely effects of the upcoming US presidential election for Indian students planning to study there in an interview with Sanket Koul. Edited excerpts

How is Oregon State University placed in the pecking order of the best varsities in the US?

We are the largest university in the state of Oregon. We are the seventh largest engineering school in the country, the largest computer science school in terms of undergraduates. We are among the top three in oceanographic and atmospheric sciences, our robotics program is very highly ranked. We also have highly ranked programs in forestry and agricultural sciences. We currently have 36,000 students, about 12,000 of those are in our online program, which has been amongst the top ten online programs in the US for a decade now.

What are the key factors that make OSU attractive for Indian students?

Firstly, the tech focus of OSU is really a central attractor. We are the STEM university in Oregon, by which engineering is a third of our student base and so the offerings in engineering are frequently a big attractor. Another big attractor I find is our focus on sustainability and clean energy. We do a lot of work on oceanographic and atmospheric sciences, collecting data up and down the west coast of the US. So, anyone who has an interest in the marriage of technology and the environment ought to be very interested in Oregon State. 

What opportunities do research and innovation in relatively newer focus areas such as climate science, clean energy, integrated health, and biotechnology bring for Indian students, especially if they decide to come back to India after completing their studies in the US? 

At the undergraduate level there are cutting-edge classes, so one can get introduced to the newest avenues for study. There are lots of opportunities in research labs and internships at the undergraduate level in subjects such as clean energy and environmental sciences.

At OSU now, Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori Huang, both OSU graduates in computer science have donated $50 million, part of which will go into building Jensen Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex, which also comes with a big NVIDIA GPU supercomputer.

The focus of a lot of the work that is going to be done in that complex will be related to environmental computation and Artificial Intelligence. So, these are very unique training opportunities that students can take back with them.

Is OSU exploring potential collaborations with Indian higher education institutions in areas such as student exchanges, research, and community service? 

Yes. That is, in fact, part of the reason why we are doing the circuit tour in India. I was at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, and spent two days there. I have had a bunch of meetings at IIT Delhi and then there is more scheduled at IIT Hyderabad and IIT Madras. There is also an interest in Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) on the computer science side.

The idea is to find intersections for a variety of things such as joint workshops, exchange of data, having our folks here, their folks there, and student training.

We are trying to figure out what the circuit is, what the intersections are, and how we can build up collaborations from that. There is lots of interest in the US scientific establishment towards India and lots of interest here as well on all fronts. So, I am positive that as we complete the circuit, we will be able to pull something out that is both practical and doable. We will also have a meeting at the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to find out what the research investments are going to be in India. 

What would be the positive outcomes that you are looking at from this tour, from OSU's point of view?

From our point of view, we would love to get into very well-defined projects with the IIT’s that we have visited. The start of it would probably be something like workshops on environmental issues, where we bring our faculty together and try and find out what the commonalities really are.

And from that, maybe look for government-to-government type of research monies and exchanges. So, the starting point is to bring the actual people who do the work and bring them together to start getting an actual process forward.

How can higher education institutions in India gain from collaborations with American universities, especially Oregon State University (OSU)?

It is a chance to collaborate and do really good work. There is a lot of intellectual strength in both India and the US. But, you know, India is now the most populous country on the planet, you know. So, to help solve problems, you have got to talk to India, there is no other way to do it. 

How do you see the Indo-US collaboration in higher education five years down the line? 

It is up to us to keep these connections growing and building. There is absolutely an interest in the US to have a connection with India, across the political spectrum. So, I do not see any of that changing through elections or anything. Beyond that, there will be, of course, some money on both sides, but it must be driven by a creative interest on the part of our faculty, which there already is.

How can the results of the upcoming US Presidential elections affect choices for Indian students planning to study in the US, especially with diverse views on immigration from both the prominent parties? 

My sense is that, because there is such a geopolitical interest in the India-US connection, such collaborations will not be tied to which political party gets elected or anything like that. I think that interest is long-term. So, I am hoping that we will work very hard to communicate our viewpoint that this connection is important, let us keep it growing. 

In a recent podcast, Donald Trump had proposed ‘automatic Green Cards’ for foreign students graduating from US colleges to boost retention rates. Will this encourage more Indian students to study in the US? 

I know that a lot of Indian students would like to work in the US. Not everybody, lots of people return home, but some people may like to work in the US. It (proposal for green card) would certainly be an attractor and if it is helpful, that would be great.

Immigration is a very complicated area, but I do know that we have got very talented people and there is a lot of talk about why we are letting all these brilliant people go after training them. So, there is some of that sense of urgency since there has also been a real pick-up in the numbers of Indian students coming to the US, which is a very positive trend.