Rama Yedavalli. Rama K. Yedavalli (born 29 July 1951 in Rayagada, Orissa, India) is an American engineering professor, currently at Ohio State University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and ASME.

He received a Ph.D. from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Purdue University in 1981 and a Bachelor’s degree was in Electrical Technology and the Master’s degree was in Aerospace Engineering, both from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He currently teaches at Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Education 
Yedavalli was born on 29 July 1951 in Rayagada, Orissa, India. After graduating from St. Peter's high school in Visakhapatnam (also known popularly as Vizag), a coastal city in the then Andhra Pradesh stat of India, he entered the prestigious Mrs. A. V. N. College for his Bachelors in Science (B.Sc.) degree and graduated with a first class in 1971. Mrs. AVN college in Vizag has the distinction of being the alma mater of the Indian Nobel Laureate in Physics, Sir CV Raman.

He then joined the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore for his Bachelor's of Engineering in Electrical Technology and graduated with in First class in 1974. He continued at IISc for his Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering with control systems as his main area of master's thesis and graduated with an M.E. degree with Distinction in 1976. His master's thesis was on pitch attitude control of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s first satellite Aryabhatta. His thesis culminated into a technical paper published in the Indian Journal of Technology.

Yedavalli then entered the Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA for his doctoral studies in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the fall of 1976, with Dr. Robert E. Skelton as his thesis advisor. He graduated with a Ph.D. in 1981 having defended his thesis in May 1981. The Ph.D. thesis was on the parameter sensitivity of flexible space structures, which was financially supported and sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The thesis resulted in multiple journal papers given in the publication section.

Faculty career 
Right after graduation from Purdue, because of his passion for teaching and research, Yedavalli joined the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ for his first faculty job as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the fall of 1981. Then he joined the University of Toledo as an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering department in the fall of 1985 and finally moved to the Ohio State University (OSU) in the fall of 1987 as an Associate Professor in the then department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.

From the fall of 1987 until his retirement at the end of December 31, 2021, he held various position as Associate Professor, Professor in the separate Aerospace engineering department until 2010 when that department merged with the Mechanical Engineering department to become the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) department. Then from 2010-2021 he held the position of Professor and the Director of the Distributed Engine Control and Simulation (DECS Lab) in the MAE department at OSU. The various leadership positions he held during his long faculty career at OSU are summarized in the Academic Administration and Leadership section.

References

Living people
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
21st-century American engineers
Ohio State University faculty
Fellows of the IEEE
1951 births
Purdue University alumni
Andhra University alumni
Indian Institute of Science alumni
People from Rayagada district
University of Toledo faculty