Vijaya Shankar Varma, Professor of Physics, Dean Planning, OSD School of Design, University of Delhi

Specialisation: Theoretical Physics, school science and mathematics curricula

Completed my ISc and BSc from Science College Patna, did an MSc in Physics from Delhi in 1962, came to Imperial College, London on an ICI fellowship, stayed long enough to get a PhD and returned home to get married to Terry who I met while she was studying French at King's College.

We are the proud parents of Gautam and Anita. Gautam is married to Sangeeta, both are software engineers, live in Sunnyvale, California and have a lovely daughter called Riya who is one of the joys of our life. Our daughter Anita trained at the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad, and after building a kiln with some friends on the outskirts of Bangalore and making murals in ceramics, is now busy illustrating children's books.

I have spent 35 of the last 38 years in teaching and research at the University of Delhi. My research interests centred around theoretical high energy physics, basic quantum mechanics and deterministic chaos. I also worked in school science curriculum development and teacher training with a voluntary group in a programme which ran in about 500 government middle schools of two districts of Madhya Pradesh for about 30 years. Recently, I have overseen the implementation of the campus-wide fibre-optic network of the University of Delhi. My current assignment is to try and establish a School of Design in the University, offering a three-year undergraduate programme leading to a BA in Design, although implementation is hanging fire because the promised funds don't seem to be materialising. I retire in January 2006 and hope to continue my engagement with school physics and photography.