K i n g s h u k B o s e
Where the story begins…
I grew up in Dum Dum, at the northern end of Kolkata – as the youngest among 3 siblings. I was not a particularly bright student in the early days of school and often dealt with the real possibility of not being promoted to the next class at the end of the year! However, I was able to turn it around through dedication and hard work and made it through the last four years of the secondary and high school system with relative ease. I received my undergraduate training in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, before moving to the United States in the late 80s for my graduate education (The Johns Hopkins University for M.S., and The University of Pennsylvania for my Ph.D.). My focus during Ph.D. was in the area of Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics – roughly translates to a study of the behavior of cracks in (for my specific case) composite materials. During my time at Penn, I was awarded The John Goff Memorial Prize – given to one student every year based on the criteria of scholarship, resourcefulness, and leadership.
A photo of Kingshuk and Minakshi from 1994, taken at Pittsburgh, when Kingshuk was a student at UPenn
Kingshuk presenting at a company event in 2014 in Bangalore, India
Dr. Kingshuk Bose
Following my Ph.D., I joined a small private company by the name of Hibbitt, Karlsson, and Sorensen Inc. in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The claim to fame for this company was their well-known flagship product, Abaqus – a scientific simulation software used by analysts and designers for building planes, trains, automobiles, bridges, and all kinds of other products where materials and structures play a role. It was a dream job at the time – where I could continue pursuing my interests in Applied Mechanics and Mathematics and work with some of the smartest people in the field (and in Pawtucket, among all places, hard as it may be to believe …). After about 10 years at the company, I decided to try out academia and joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Sciences at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Although I soon came to the realization that academics was not for me, during my short stay at the university I managed to graduate two Ph.D. and two M.S. students. One of my Ph.D. students went on to become a faculty at a regional engineering college in India. I joined by old employer back in 2008, and have been with the company since. This company was acquired by Dassault Systemes in 2005. Over the years I have been in different R&D roles, and currently serve as an R&D Technology Director leading a team of senior engineers to develop complex scientific simulation software.
The Bose Family
By any standards, my greatest achievement in life is marrying Minakshi – whom most BARI members know very well. We got married when I was still a graduate student at Penn -- we spent the first few years of our married life in Philadelphia. We moved to Rhode Island towards the end of 1994, and fell in love with the beautiful little state by the ocean. Over the years, we were blessed with two wonderful boys – Shounak and Alok, who are all grown up and independent now. Both our boys studied engineering at The Case Western Reserve University. Shounak also got his M.S. from Tufts University and is employed in the field of strategic and marketing consulting for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical products, while Alok is pursuing his graduate education at The Rensselaer Polytechnique Institute. We are waiting to enter the next phase of our life as and when our boys decide to start their own families.
P h o t o g r a p h y
Outside of family and work, I am passionate about Nature and Landscape photography. My first major purchase after arriving to the US happened to be a Minolta SLR camera! Photography took a back seat over the years as the other aspects of life took priority. However, I managed to get back into it over the last few years. This interest forces me to spend more time outdoors than I might otherwise have done, and serves as a great stress reliever. My photographs have been included in juried exhibitions in local art centers, featured in a 2019 calendar published by The Blackstone Heritage Council, published in The Valley Breeze -- a local newspaper published in RI and MA. A few years back, one of Spring photos (yellow tulips) trended up to the number 1 spot in the well-known photography site 500px.com. I am an active member of the private Facebook photography community, Capture Rhode Island (CRI), and recently joined the admin team of this community by invitation. This involvement has helped me meet many interesting people and talented photographers, whom I might now have otherwise known or met. Minakshi and I also love to travel – an interest that goes hand-in-hand with my interests in photography
Some of my favorite photos can be found here:
https://kingshukbose.smugmug.com/
Selected photos are also displayed in the gallery below.
Selected Photographs
Kingshuk (or Kingshukda, as several of us address him) has been the “photographer-in-residence” for all of BARI’s events ever since we can remember. His remarkable talent and profound interest in photography are evident from the sheer volume of masterpieces he creates each time he gets behind the camera. His tireless efforts to capture and compile each BARI event through his photographs are truly a labor of love. The collection of his BARI photographs together weave a story of several of BARI’s special memories through the years. Many of these pictures can be found on BARI’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AamaaderBARI/photos_albums
All the photos used on this spotlight page (with the exception of the ones he is in, of course) have been taken by Kingshuk himself. Also included below is a gallery of some of his favorite pieces, including his award-winning yellow tulip photograph. Please enjoy these stunning shots!
