Hyderabad: Proving that age is indeed just a number, a 77-year old man from Andhra Pradesh earned his MS thesis in “Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Existing RC Buildings in Vijayawada city” from International Institute of Information Technology (IIiT) Hyderabad’s Earthquake Engineering Research Center (EERC).
Born in 1947, S Lakshminarasimha Shastri from Gudivada was deputed by Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) in 1998 to oversee the planning and development of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s brainchild- the IIIT.
Shastry was involved in every facet of building the campus infrastructure, including the construction of the academic building Himalaya, the student residences Palash, Kadamba, Parijatha, and Bakul, the faculty residences of Ananda Nivas and Buddha Nivas, the open-air theater, internal road development, labor and material supervision, the electrical substation, the water supply, and the avenue plantation on the lush campus.
However, he was always thirsty for knowledge and was not satisfied with his mere BSC degree in Engineering. So, years later he pulled up his socks and decided to finally get himself enrolled in the Msc course in 2022.
He also had to perform his executive duties of the college while balancing his academic stress. He, however, took this up as a challenge and submitted his research paper on 'Earthquake Engineering' in July of this year following which he passed out with flying colours.
The authorities of IIIT Hyderabad released a statement on Wednesday praising Shastri for his incredible work as an engineer from the conception of IIIT to its inception.
“Professor Pradeep encouraged me to do my thesis on safety mechanisms at twenty distressed buildings in Vijayawada and study whether they could sustain earthquakes of certain frequencies. I attended Masters’ classes for three years and enjoyed the classroom experience.
Of the 20 building surveyed, 12 buildings were deemed unfit. For my Ph.D, I will be exploring retrofitting methods and suggesting engineering solutions for these structures,” Sastri said. He is blessed with a son and a daughter and feels fortunate that they reside with him in the same city. His daughter-in-law too works at the IIIT in a different department.
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