NITM

Prof. D N Buragohain completed his early part of education from Golaghat Govt. High School and later Cotton College, Guwahati, securing first rank in both the Matriculation (1957) and Intermediate Science (1959) examinations. He later joined IIT Bombay in 1959 as its 2nd batch of students and obtained the B.Tech.(Hons) in Civil Engg. (1963), M.Tech.(Structures) (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) from the same institute. He was a Post-doctoral Researchers in University of Wales, Swansea, from 1973-74, following which he joined IIT Bombay in 1968 as a Faculty member of Civil Engg., where he became a Professor in 1978. He had also served as the Dean of Planning of the Institute and Head of the Civil Engg. Department

At IIT Bombay, besides teaching, publications, and guidance of a large number of Ph.D and M.Tech. students, Prof. Buragohain carried out a large number of consultancy projects for different organizations such as BARC, AERB, BHEL, Post & Telegraphs, ONGC, Indian Register of Shipping, Gammon, STUP, HCC, various establishments of DRDO, Space Applications Centre, various State PWD’s to name a few. During this period, also developed a general-purpose software BSAFE (Structural Analysis using Finite Elements) for static and dynamic analysis of all types of structures which was later acquired by CSI, Germany in 1989, who were marketing it in Germany under the name FEBA.

He returned to Guwahati in February 1994 as Project Director at IIT Guwahati to set up the sixth IIT at Guwahati, and the first fully indigenous IIT of the country. He served as the Founder Director of IIT Guwahati from July 1994, till his superannuation in 2003. His remarkable career included serving as Advisor to the Srimanta Sankar Academy Trust Guwahati (2003-2006), COO of Real Estate Divn., Guwahati, Brahmaputra Consortium Ltd., Delhi, (2005-2007), CTO, CE-N, Civil Engineering Network Systems Pvt Ltd., for carrying out structural analyses and design of Power Plants and special Structures.

He has been bestowed with numerous awards such as:

• The KKB National Award for Science & Technology for 2006, instituted by the Kamal Kumari Barua Foundation, Kolkata.
• The Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in its Golden Jubilee Year, 2008-2009.
• Featured under the caption “Enineering Legends of India”, by the Projects Monitor Magazine, vol.12, issue 41, Feb. 2013.
• Professor Emeritus, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, 2014.
• Professor Emeritus, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, 2015.
• The Eminent Engineering Personality Award of the Institution of Engineers (India), December, 2015.
• The ERDF Excellence Award-2015, by the Educational Research and Development Foundation Guwahati, January, 2016.
• Citation of Honour by Institute Advanced Study in Science and Technology, Guwahati, November, 2017

He has worked in various honorary capacities such as:

• Independent Director, Board of Directors, General Insurance Corporation of India (1997-2001)
• Member, Insurance Regulatory Development Authority, Govt. of India (2001-2004)
• Member, Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, Govt. of India (1998-2002)
• Independent Director, Board of Directors, Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. (2004-2010)
• Member, Board of Management of all the Central Universities in the Northeast. (NEHU, Assam Univ. Silchar, Tezpur Univ., Mizoram Univ., Manipur Univ., Nagaland Univ.)

Presently Prof. Buragohain is the associated with institute, holding the following positions

• Chancellor, Nagaland (Central) University, Lumami, Nagaland, (since 2012)
• Member, State Innovation and Transformation Aayog (SITA), Govt. of Assam, (since 2017)
• Chairman, Board of Governors, Jorhat Institute of Science & Technology, (since 2018)
• Member, Executive Council, National Law University & Judicial Academy, Assam, (since 2009)
• Adviser (Structural Engineering Specialist) in the DDF-AKDN JV Project on ‘National Seismic Risk Mitigation Programme’ under the aegis of National Disaster Management Authority, (2021)