April 20, 2006

NORMAN – Not everyone would describe math as an exciting and engaging subject, but one professor at the University of Oklahoma has been rewarded for his ability to stimulate and engage his students in this subject matter.

Krishnan “Ravi” Shankar, assistant professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences, was stunned and speechless when Dean Paul B. Bell and a number of other staff and colleagues from the department trooped into his honors calculus class early Tuesday morning, with balloons and candy in tow.

The purpose of the interruption was to announce that Shankar is the recipient of the 2006 Irene Rothbaum Award for the Outstanding Assistant Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. He will receive a monetary gift of $2,500, a personal plaque, his name engraved on a permanent plaque in the college office and a recognition luncheon in his honor.

Upon hearing the news, Shankar replied, smiling broadly, “There’s been a mistake.”

But no mistake was made. Alan Roche, associate professor in the department, and Paul Goodey, chair of the Department of Mathematics, each highlighted Shankar’s accomplishments in letters of nomination and recommendation for the award.

“Professor Shankar is a gifted, dedicated and charismatic teacher,” Roche stated. “Ravi seems to have a special ability to explain mathematics and to bring the subject alive in a way that is meaningful to his audience.”

Goodey wrote in his letter of recommendation that Shankar was hired from a very strong pool of over 250 applicants.

“He has an amazing facility for explaining mathematics,” Goodey said. “As chair of the department, I have visited his classes on numerous occasions. I invariably come away feeling I have learned of new ways to present mathematics in my own classes. It is clear to me that he is a model for us all.”

Prior to assuming his position at OU, Shankar was a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg, Germany, in the summer of 2001 and was the T.H. Hildebrandt Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan from 1999 through 2002.

Shankar came to OU in 2002 and has taught mathematics classes for both majors and non-majors, including service courses for students in engineering and the natural sciences, undergraduate mathematics courses and specialized advanced graduate mathematics classes. His research interests in the topics of differential geometry and topology/group theory have been published in national journals, including the Journal of Differential Geometry and the American Journal of Mathematics.

Over the years, Shankar has been the recipient of grants and awards from the National Science Foundation and the American Mathematical Society. He has served as a guest lecturer at more than a dozen conferences, workshops and seminars throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, India and Denmark.