SUKUMAR BANDOPADHYAY NAMED DEAN OF
UAF SCHOOL OF MINERAL ENGINEERING

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2002

Fairbanks, Alaska – Sukumar Bandopadhyay has been named dean of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Mineral Engineering. He has served as interim dean since July 2001 and has been at UAF since 1982 as a professor and department head.

Bandopadhyay has been actively involved in UAF’s Academic Advising Center for more than a decade and received the Carol Feist award for outstanding undergraduate advising.

"The school has a long and historic tie to mineral engineering in Alaska," said Bandopadhyay. "As long as the state depends on its natural resources as a source of revenue, our graduates will continue to be instrumental to that success." Bandopadhyay, a registered professional engineer in the state of Alaska, received his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering and a master’s of technology degree in mine planning from the Banaras Hindu University, India. He also holds a master’s degree in Mining Engineering and Operations Research and a doctorate in Mining Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. As dean he will also serve as the director of both the Petroleum Development Laboratory, and the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory at UAF. Bandopadhyay has worked in coal and metal mines in various supervisory capacities for more than five years.

Bandopadhyay is the founder-chair of the International Arctic Mining Council and was a co-editor of the proceedings of the first and second International Symposiums on Mining in the Arctic. He has been a visiting professor at Lulea University in Sweden, and he has served on the United Nations’ Development Program as a consultant.

The School of Mineral Engineering is composed of the Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, the Department of Petroleum Engineering, the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory and the Petroleum Development Laboratory.

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Note to Editors: a photo is available upon request.

CONTACT: UAF Public Information Officer Carla Browning at 907-474-7778 or email: carla.browning@uaf.edu.

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