The Class of 2018 will be honored on May 2-3 at “The Greatest Celebration of American Innovation” event,
Two Indian Americans have been selected for induction into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame for their groundbreaking inventions.
Sumita Mitra and Arogyaswami Paulraj have been selected as part of the Class of 2018 National Inventors Hall of Fame.
They are among the 15 “innovation pioneers” who will be honored as the newest Class of Inductees in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The inductees will be honored May 2-3 at the annual “The Greatest Celebration of American Innovation” event, the Hall said in a press release last week. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a partner of the event.
Arogyaswami Paulraj currently works as a professor emeritus at Stanford. He pioneered MIMO—Multiple Input, Multiple Output—a wireless technology that has revolutionized broadband wireless internet access for billions of people worldwide.
“MIMO improves both transmission data rates and expands network coverage,” said National Inventors Hall of Fame in a statement. “It is the essential foundation for all current (WiFi and 4G mobile) and future broadband wireless communications.”
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The multiple antennas used at both the transmit and the receive stations of MIMO along with appropriate transmit coding and receiver decoding, enable spatial multiplexing in which multiple parallel data streams (equal to the number of antennas) can be delivered over a single radio channel to boost speed.
An immigrant from India, Paulraj holds 79 patents and has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Marconi Prize in 2014. Born in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, he has helped Indian Navy by advancing its sonar capacity while he was working with the organization.
In 1977, he led the design of the APSOH sonar which became the fleet sonar of the Indian Navy, ushering in India’s global leadership in this vital technology.
Paulraj, who joined Indian Navy at age 15, completed his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) with the support of the force. Later, he moved to the United States to join the faculty at Stanford University.
Since 1998, he has founded several companies including Iospan Wireless Inc., which was acquired by Intel. He also co-founded Beceem Communications, which became a global leader in WiMAX semiconductors and was acquired by Broadcom in 2010.
A former Science Coach for the American Chemical Society, Sumita Mitra, has been honored for inventing the first dental filling material to include nanoparticles.
The multidisciplinary team headed by Mitra invented a new composite filling material, called Filtek™ Supreme Universal Restorative.
It “is a versatile material that could be used for restoring teeth in any area of the mouth; mimicked the beauty of natural teeth; had better polish retention, and exhibited superior strength than existing dental composites,” said a statement issued by National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Mitra and her team “developed unique nanomeric and nanoclustered filler particles which they combined to generate a composite system that had excellent paste handling properties and, when cured, provided superior optical properties both initially and long-term, while exhibiting excellent mechanical strength and wear resistance,” according to a bio posted on the Hall website.
Mitra invented the material while working as a chemist at 3M Oral Care, the dental products division of 3M Company.
She earned her B.S. in chemistry from Presidency College, Kolkata, and her M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of Calcutta. She holds a Ph.D. in organic/polymer chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Mitra retired in 2010 after more than 30 years with 3M and now runs Mitra Chemical Consulting LLC with her husband. She holds 98 US patents and their international equivalents.
They will be felicitated at an event held in May this year.