Gratitude

The benefactors along the way

A thank you note!

This lab has been blessed by the support by several benefactors from its birth and subsequent growth. This page is for giving credit to the individuals and organizations who have helped along the way.

In 2011, I had received a teaching grant from NVIDIA with graphics cards. As a new faculty member at IIIT Bangalore (IIITB) and also being new to Indian academia and academia, in general, I was still getting my bearings around setting up my research group. Hence, I didn't have a lab setup already to use the graphics cards that I had gotten. Prof. P. G. Poonacha, who had just received the CEEMS grant from the Government of Karnataka, wholeheartedly helped me with the funds to set up the lab. Without any further discussion on the matter, to my pleasant surprise, he suggested to run the freshly conceptualized "Graphics Computing Lab," metaphorically handing over the keys to the lab. While I marked "high-performance computing" as a possible area to develop at IIITB then, and considered possibilities of building a lab centered around GPUs, the lab name did not reflect my primary research interest, which is data visualization. Consequently, the lab got its name involving these themes.

These events sparked my efforts towards applying for research grants. In 2012, I received a research project grant from NRDMS program, under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Now, this program is called the National Geospatial Program (NGP). The sparsely populated (one-person) lab remained dormant throughout, with the uncertainties of its growth. But, this was to change in late 2013. With faith and unconditional support from my then-Masters student Beena Kumari, we decided to revive the lab. We began to organize activities in the lab, and using the identity of the lab in all our research activities.

The IIITB fraternity has forever supported the research lab. I will not be able to thank one person enough in this regard - that is Prof. S. Sadagopan, the founding director of IIITB. Prof. Debabrata Das, the incumbent director of IIITB, continues to support.

There was no looking back since its rebirth in 2013-14. Through the lab, we have been able to foster talent of several young students and professionals, and get several grants, as any other functioning research labs. Some of the lab members have helped in running the lab organization, beyond their own research and/or academic requirements, and that list includes Beena Kumari, Amit Tomar, Shivam Agarwal, Reddy Rani Vangimalla, Komal Dadhich, Satendra Singh, Harshitha Ravindra, Beryl Gnanaraj, Aswathi Mundayatt, Prince Butani, Krishnakumar N, and Saqib Alam Ansari.

At this juncture, I have been able to give back to NGP in the form of service in its expert committees with the support of Dr. P. S. Acharya, Dr. Shubha Pandey, and Dr. Debapriya Dutta. The project in 2012 also spurned my work in geospatial data, which later on helped me to participate in the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), actively and in leadership positions.  Through GRSS and his association with the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG), Prof. B. S. Daya Sagar, ISI Bangalore, has mentored and helped in providing me opportunities to continue both community participation and intellectual work in geospatial/geoscientific data. Prof. Avik Bhattacharya, IIT Bombay, has provided the exposure with the global GRSS committees and forums. Prof. Bharat Lohani, IIT Kanpur, has helped with opportunities in research and thought leadership activities related to work in LiDAR point clouds, including involving me in the BIS committee for LITD 22 for standards on airborne LiDAR. Gurudatta K. N. has remained a sounding board for project ideas, research outreach, and others, stemming from our common interest in LiDAR data analytics.

I have been co-teaching graphics courses with Prof. T. K. Srikanth, IIITB, since 2014, which also led way to our collaboration in setting up the E-Health Research Center (EHRC) at IIITB, in 2015. My involvement with EHRC formation and administration has been instrumental in diversifying my work to population data analytics.

-Jaya Sreevalsan Nair

(written on 2021-01-24, edited on 2026-07-04)