Doraiswami (Ramki) Ramkrishna, obtained his B.Chem Eng. in 1960 from BUDCT (now ICT). He received his PhD in 1965 from the University of Minnesota and returned to India to join the IIT Kanpur faculty in 1967. In 1974, he returned to the United States and after visiting appointments at Wisconsin and Minnesota, joined Purdue University in 1976 as Professor. In 1994, he was appointed H.C. Peffer Distinguished Professor. Ramkrishna is noted for his research on the application of mathematics to chemical and biochemical reaction engineering, biotechnology, particulate systems, stochastic modeling and personalized medicine. He has authored books; on Linear Operators with Amundson, Population Balances, and, Cybernetic Models with H-S Song.
He has AIChE Awards, Alpha Chi Sigma (1987), Wilhelm (1998), and Thomas Baron (2004). He is a Fellow of AIMBE (1996), AIChE (2008). He won the German Senior Humboldt Award n 2001. Bombay University honored him with the UDCT Diamond Award (1994) and Platinum Award (2009), and the Jewel of Ruia Award (2006). In 2005, the University of Minnesota awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science. Ramkrishna has held several Distinguished Professorships and delivered numerous Distinguished Lectures. He was elected to the NAE (2009), and the Indian NAE in 2011.