Fresno State professor emeritus Chandra Sekhar Brahma was born in 1941 in Calcutta, India to Uma Rani and Nalini Kanta Brahma, the dean of Presidency College.

Education was paramount in the family and Dr. Brahma matriculated to Belur Math in Howrah after graduating from Rani Bhavani High School. He spent the next four years at Bengal Engineering College, graduating in 1962. Dr. Brahma then earned his graduate degrees in civil engineering: an M.S. in 1965 at Michigan State University and Ph.D. at Ohio State University in 1969, under the guidance of Dr. Tien Hsieh Wu.

Upon graduation, he began in the private engineering realm with Reutter in New Jersey, DMJM in Maryland and Sverdrup in Missouri from 1969 to 1980. He was the senior project engineer for the construction of the Washington Metro and the Water Immersion Facility for the Johnson Space Center.

Dr. Brahma always had an innate desire to teach, and he left private engineering to begin an academic career at Fresno State in 1980. In his first semester at the University, he embarked on a mission to excite students about learning while making all appreciate the impact engineering and the applied sciences have on society.

Visit the Lyles College of Engineering blog to read more.