Professor Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and Mandi, has been appointed as the new Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The appointment, made by the President of India in her capacity as Visitor of BHU, is for a term of three years from the date he assumes office, or until he reaches the age of 70, whichever is earlier.

Chaturvedi is currently a professor at IIT Kanpur. He brings to the role a wealth of experience in academic administration and a strong research background in wireless communication technology. He completed his BTech, MTech, and PhD from IIT Kanpur in 1986, 1988, and 1995, respectively. His research interests include communication theory and wireless communications, and he is known for his contributions to waveform shaping and sequence design.

Prior to this appointment, Chaturvedi served as the Director of IIT Roorkee from 2017 to 2022. He also held the position of Director (Acting) at IIT Mandi from July 2020 to January 2022. Before his directorships, Chaturvedi served as the Dean of Research and Development and Deputy Director at IIT Kanpur. Furthermore, he led the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Kanpur.

Chaturvedi's appointment comes after Professor Sanjay Kumar, the Rector of BHU, assumed the role of acting Vice-Chancellor in January of this year, following the completion of Professor Sudhir K. Jain's term.

Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi's expertise lies in areas such as MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) systems. He has contributed to research articles and conference proceedings. His articles include "Max–min fairness based linear transceiver–relay design for MIMO interference relay channel" and "Application of computational geometry to multiuser detection in CDMA". He also has conference proceedings like "Improved Sparsity Behaviour and Error Localization in Detectors for Large MIMO Systems".