Three Idols of Mine

I have been taught and supervised by many teachers and researchers. They are so dedicated in their work. It is difficult to to talk about all, here I will take pride in describing three such educationists who have really influenced me and taught me a lot. I feel proud and excited to talk about them always.

Eitan Altman: He (top left in red-checked shirt) got PhD under Andew Shwartz at Technion, Israel. Now he is associated with INRIA and Univ of Avignon both in France. He is one of the top reseachers in the world. I won't describe his professional achievements as those are online rather i will describe my personal experience. I think he works for 25 hrs despite the fact that he is so intelligent and has family with two kids. He also composes music. He is an editor of many journals. Once during lunch he said, "I am always eager to submit and publish papers". Unlike many researchers, he is always accessible and replies to mails immediately and he is very understanding and straightforward. One can barge into his office anytime and ask any mathematical question. I still remember, during my first visit to him, I used to go to his office and used to pose questions. On every occasion he had answers ready even before I could finish asking the questions. He is not formal unlike many researchers who like to set up appointments for discussion. I remember I used to often catch him in the corridor and would ask him questions from random paper, he would still be able to answer precisely. To tell you about his focus and dedication, I was once at his apartment and we were moving a sofa from one apt to another and we had to carry it together. So, after walking down the stairs we were on the streets while holding the sofa with hands and we were panting. Eitan didn't want to waste time, he was posing some questions on the paper we were working on; he was also giving ideas how we could try new things. To give an idea of his efficiency, in 2005 he co-authored seven INFOCOM papers (one of the top networking conferences; also single author in 1 paper) whereas there are many dedicated Networking Research Groups in US schools and barely any research group as a whole could beat such productivity. I always miss his guidance.

Clem Karl: He (top right in B&W) got PhD from MIT and now a professor in BU, EE and teaches stochastic processes, signal processing etc. He has been the best teacher I have come across in life. He is knowledgeable, full of energy, enthusiasm and focussed. So, I registered for his class Probability and Stochastic Processes. On the first day of class, he outlined the course contents and told his expectations from the students. He said, "If you are registered for this class, don't take any other serious course this semester. I will post homeworks every week. This course is heavy weight, you have to read, write and do experiments and attend two 2 hrs lecture every week. But I can assure you that if you get A in this course, you can ask the school double of what you are paid. " Such was the conviction in his voice. Without getting deterred, I remained in the class. I used to stop doing everything else from Wednesday because I had to work for this course for Friday deadline. When 2 hrs used to get over of his lecture, I used to think "why couldn't it last for one more hour ?". In the course, he taught nicely - distribution, joint-distribution, stochastic processes, estimation techniques. Before every class, he would motivate why we were doing that topic - for example, anecdote about Kalman, why Kalman filter was designed etc. I should say, it was awesome course and I never learned something so well in any other course. I hope he could teach me every course I wanted to study.

Divesh Srivastava: He (bottom right) is a research scientist at AT&T, New Jersey and I have hardly seen anymore more patient, more precise,more knowlegeable than Divesh. Besides being extraordinary intelligent and knowledgeable, he is so down to earth. When he speaks during research meetings, he does not fumble -- that is whatever he says seems final. One can say, he must be well-prepared. Even on many occasions, he would answer any online question with so much precise authority that it would take a while for me to understand. I try hard to catch up with him and sometimes I feel embarrassed that he contributes so much to my research and gives so much guidance in my research. He has long beard, long hair (at least from pic) and he also talks like a saint with utter calmness. The most important thing is he believes in me even though he does not really need me. I hope to keep working with him forever.