Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers

Preamble:  Prof. Roger Plank, President and Darren Byrne, Director of Membership and Examination of the Institution of Structural Engineers arrived in Kolkata on 12 March 2011 on a six day visit to promote structural engineering and to raise the profile and membership base of the Institution in the Kolkata region. In my three capacities, namely, as a Council Member, as the Chairman of the International Interest Group and as the Country Representative of the Institution--all of course labor of love for me, I organized the engagements, in which I sought and received generous help from fellow members Tapan Roy, R N Basu, Manoj Majumdar, Dr. B C Roy, Jeremy Hall, Phalguni Banerjee, Mriganka Roy, Salil Roy and Dr. Kalyan Ganguly.  While I joined Roger and Darren to make a threesome team at all engagements, some of the other members joined in at a particular event as mentioned later in this blog.  Over the span of six days the three of us attended some thirteen rewarding and enjoyable ev

Dr. J. C. Chapman in late 1960's Beyond borders: Dr. John Clifford Chapman, (Jack to his colleagues and Dr. Chapman to his students), had a long and distinguished teaching and research career in structural engineering at Imperial College. His career at Imperial College spanned over several decades during which he mentored some fifty researchers leading to their respective PhD's and publications in refereed journals.  His students came from all across the globe. During my time, for example, in the second half of the 1960's and early 1970's, his students included: Kevin Moffat from New Zealand, Don Williams from Australia, PTK Lim from Singapore, SP Sarana/ Prabir Neogi/ me from India, Bijaan Aalami from Iran, Lloyd Yam from Hong Kong, Alexander Stamenkovic from Yugoslavia, Ian Tereszkevic/ Peter Malewski from Poland, Patrick Dowling from the Irish Republic, Paul Lyons and Tony Duke from England. Dr. Chapman treated all his students equally. He was able to brid