Prof Talat Ahmad takes over as Jamia Milia University Vice Chancellor

Professor Talat Ahmad, an Earth Scientist of international repute, took over as vice-chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia today. He was recently appointed by the President of India. In his message to the university community, Ahmad sought inspiration from the founding fathers of Jamia Millia Islamia, one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world.

"Jamia should provide cutting edge learning experience, internationally benchmarked education, intellectual freedom and critical opportunities in frontier areas of contemporary concern," he said. He opined that Jamia would need to deliberate upon reconstituting the academic programmes through introduction of choice-based credit System, discuss suitable examination and administrative reforms and consider use of international benchmarks, such as Citation index and Journal Impact factor etc for evaluating the quality of research.

He appealed to all the stake-holders in Jamia Millia Islamia to work collectively to promote growth of the institution. Ahmad is an Earth Scientist of international repute and had served as the former vice-chancellor of the University of Kashmir before this. He did his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University and then went on to become a Professor in the Department of Geology, University of Delhi.

He had post doctoral research stints with three foreign universities --University of Cambridge, University of Leicester and Nagoya University.