Biography of Subir Kumar Ghosh

Subir Kumar Ghosh (born 1953) is a distinguished Indian computer scientist known world-wide for his pioneering work in Computational Geometry, Robot Motion Planning, and Geometric Graph Theory. He was an Honorary Professor at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI) and a former Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), School of Technology and Computer Science, TIFR, Mumbai. He obtained his Ph.D. from TIFR, Mumbai in 1987. His research areas include Algorithm design, Computational Geometry, Visibility algorithms, Robot motion planning and Geometric graph theory. He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) in 1998. He authored the textbook titled “Visibility Algorithms in the Plane” published by Cambridge University Press 2007.

He is widely known for being a visionary in pioneering a national effort to significantly improve the levels of knowledge and researchers in Algorithms and algorithmic research of the college students and teachers. In the period of 2008-2015, he organized more than 20 Research Promotion workshops on Algorithms in Universities and institutions across India in places such as: Univ. Kerala and IIITM Thiruvananthapuram, Bengal Engg. and Sc. Univ. Shibpur, Thapar Univ. Patiala, PSGCT Anna Univ. Coimbatore, Univ. Kashmir Srinagar, IT- BHU Varanasi, NIT Patna, NIT Warangal, NIT Surathkal, Manipal Institute Gangtok, Sikkim, VNIT Nagpur, BITS Pilani at Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad, IIITDM Jabalpur, IIT Kharagpur, IISc Bangalore and TIFR, Mumbai.

From 2009-2014, he was actively involved in organizing the international conference WALCOM, Workshop on Algorithms and Computation, which was held four times in this period in India. He initiated a tradition of holding bilateral country workshops on discrete and applied mathematics in conjunction with the main conference. Examples are the Indo-Taiwan workshop (2011), Indo-Israel workshop(2013), Indo-Slovenia workshop (2013) and the independently organized Indo-German workshop on Algorithms for Big Data (2016, IIT Madras)

From 2014 onwards, he created and led the Association of Computer Science and Discrete Mathematics (ACSDM). Under the auspices of ACSDM, he launched the International Conference on Algorithms and Discrete Applied Mathematics (CALDAM) that has since been successfully organized annually in various universities and institutions in India from 2015-now, namely, IIT Kanpur 2015, Univ. of Kerala, Trivandrum 2016, BITS Pilani, Goa 2017, IIT Guwahati 2018, IIT Kharagpur 2019, IIT Hyderabad 2020, IIT Ropar 2021, Pondicherry Univ. 2022, DAIICT Gandhinagar 2023, IIT Bhilai 2024, PSGCT Coimbatore 2025, IIT Dharwad 2026 and LNMIIT Jaipur (to be held in 2027) . In this period CALDAM has established itself as a reputable international conference in the areas of Algorithms and Discrete Applied Mathematics, with significant national and international participation. He ensured a very successful tradition of conducting bilateral country pre-conference workshops, namely, Indo-Czech workshop 2015, Indo-Hungarian workshop 2016, Indo-German workshop 2017, Indo-Canadian workshop 2018, Indo-Italian workshop 2019, Indo-French 2020, Indo-Dutch workshop 2023, Indo-Slovenian workshop 2024, Indo-Spanish workshop 2025 and Indo-Polish workshop 2026. Selected papers of each CALDAM conference are published in a special edition of reputed journals such as Discrete Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and Acta Informatica, after following the due review process.

Prof. Subir Ghosh was a distinguished scientist who did pioneering work in Computational Geometry. His vision was to make India, its students and teachers, grow in their excellence in scholarship and research ability in Algorithms and Computer Science. He was a visionary who dedicated the last two and a half decades of his life to the growth of knowledge and research in the area of Algorithms and Computer Science in India. His immense organizational and people skills have made these series of workshops and conferences possible. Those who had the privilege of knowing him personally, know him to be a highly dependable and a very insightful mentor, a source of inspiration, originator of ideas and solutions to problems and a guiding light to them.

Subir Ghosh is survived by his wife Sumana, his son Rajarshi, his siblings, extended family and the next generation of Indian researchers.

May this immensely dedicated and noble soul merge with the Lord.