SOA professor Manas Ranjan Das passes away

Bhubaneswar: Prof. Manas Ranjan Das, head of department of Civil Engineering at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), faculty of engineering and technology of SOA, passed away on Monday morning following a cardiac arrest.

Prof. Das had undergone cardiac surgery recently for replacement of a valve in the heart but his condition deteriorated subsequently when he was put on the life support system.

Prof. Das, 54, is survived by his wife and a son. Having done his B.Tech from Utkal University, he did his M.Tech from Jadavpur University and Ph.D from Utkal University.

His specialisation was in the area of Geotechnical Engineering. He had research interests in Artificial Intelligence, Sensitivity Analysis, Optimization, Uncertainty Analysis, Genetic Programming and Computational Intelligence. He had nine papers to his credit published in national and international journals.

Prof. Das also took keen interest in environment and climate change having organised several international and national conferences at SOA including on ‘Global Warming, Sea Level Rise and Livelihood Adaptation Strategies along the East Coast of India’ in 2015 and on ‘Understanding Clouds’ in 2017.

Prof. (Dr.) Manojranjan Nayak, founder president of SOA, who is related to Prof. Das, Saswati Das, vice-president of SOA, Suman Nayak and Upasana Nayak, founding members of SOA and Soumendra Priyadarshi, commissioner of Police, Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Commissionerate Police, visited the hospital to pay their last respects to the departed soul.

A condolence meeting was held at SOA, which was attended by staff members where the Chancellor Prof. DP Ray, vice-chancellor Prof. Ashok Kumar Mahapatra, chairman, board of advisors Prof. Damodar Acharya, former vice-chancellor Prof. RP Mohanty, Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, Controller of Examination Prof. Manjula Das, registrar Prof. BB Pradhan and Prof. Jayadev Pati paid tributes to the departed soul.

Most of the senior officials of the university attended the meeting where they described Prof. Das as a soft spoken, ever smiling and humble person who was an excellent and hardworking teacher.