Overview
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) is an institution of higher technological education, basic and applied research. In 1956, the German Government offered technical assistance for establishing an institute of higher education in engineering in India. The first Indo-German agreement in Bonn, West Germany for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras was signed in 1959.

IIT Madras is a residential institute with nearly 550 faculty, 8000 students and 1250 administrative & supporting staff. The Institute has sixteen academic departments and a few advanced research centres in various disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories organised in a unique pattern of functioning. A faculty of international repute, a brilliant student community, excellent technical & supporting staff and an effective administration have all contributed to the pre-eminent status of IIT Madras. The campus is located in the city of Chennai, previously known as Madras.

IITM has the following Departments and Research Centres:

Departments:
• Department of Civil Engineering
• Department of Chemistry
• Department of Chemical Engineering
• Department of Biotechnology
• Department of Applied Mechanics
• Department of Aerospace Engineering
• Department of Computer Science and Engineering
• Department of Electrical Engineering
• Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Department of Management Studies
• Department of Mathematics
• Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
• Department of Ocean Engineering
• Department of Physics

Research Centres:
• Centre for Technology and Policy (CTAP)
• Centre for Continuing Education (CCE)
• Centre for NEMS and Nanophotonics (CNNP)
• Health Care Innovation Centre (HTIC)
• National Cancer Tissue Biobank (NCTB)
• National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD)
• Centre for Computational Brain Research
• Centre for Innovation
• Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
• IIT Madras Bioincubator

UAlberta Connections
In August 2018, Dr. Karthik Shankar, Professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, delivered a guest lecture on “Exploiting Nanophotonic Effects to Enhance the Performance of State-of-the-Art Photocatalytic and Photovoltaic Devices” at IITM.

In December 2017, Dr. Leijun Li, Professor in the Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering, delivered 3 days of seminars on “Weld Thermal Cycles”, “Weld Metal Solidification” and “Welding Metallurgy of Steels” at IIT Madras through the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN).

Dr. Thomas Thundat, Professor in the Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering, holds an honorary professorship at IITM.

In February 2014, Dr. Niket Kaisare, Associate Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at IITM, delivered a guest lecture on “Model-Based Advanced Control in Natural Gas Extraction” at UAlberta.

Dr. Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at IITM, was a Visiting Professor in the Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering at UAlberta in 2002.

Dr. Shankar Narasimhan, Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IITM, was a Visiting Professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UAlberta from 2002-2003.

Dr. T S Natarajan, Professor in the Department of Physics at IITM, was a Visiting Professor in the Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering at UAlberta in 2011.

Dr. Lakshmanan Sriramkumar, Professor in the Dept. of Physics at IITM was a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at UAlberta from 1999-2001.