Ph D Shashanka Shekhar Mitra

Shashanka Shekhar Mitra, PhD, Professor Emeritus at URI, of Kingston, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at the age of 78. Shashanka was born in Calcutta, India on October 19, 1933 to the late Kagendra Narayan and Labanya Prova (Buxy) Mitra. He is survived by his daughter, Nila Ottilige, of Canterbury, CT, his son, Shaibal Mitra, of Bay Shore, NY, and his nephews Siddhartha Sangal, of Annandale, NJ, and Shaumitra Sangal, of England. Shashanka also leaves two grandsons, Hugh and Quinn Ottilige, and two people he held as dear as the above to his heart, Sheila Milton, of Exeter, and Barbara Heise, of Newport. He was predeceased by his beloved sisters Kona Dutta, in 2000, and Gita Sangal, in 2011. World War II, in conjunction with the Indian independence movement, caused great turmoil in West Bengal, and the Mitras moved to Allahabad, in north-central India. Shashanka studied mathematics, chemistry, and physics at Allahabad University and began doctoral work at the University of Michigan in 1953. After receiving his degree in physics in 1957, he moved to Ottawa, Canada, to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Research Council. It was there in Canada that he met Sheila, a native of Great Britain, and the two determined to forge a life together in the United States. It wasn’t easy, but following stints in India, England, and Toronto (at the Ontario Research Foundation), they eventually managed in 1962 to settle in Chicago, IL, where Shashanka held a research position at Illinois Institute of Technology, and where Nila was born. In 1966, Shashanka was hired as a tenured full professor at the University of Rhode Island, and Shaibal was born a year later. Shashanka was a prolific scholar, publishing almost 100 papers, editing seven books, and advising 16 PhD students. Shashanka’s career spanned a period of tremendous progress in the application of theoretical physics to practical technologies, for instance in the fields of lasers and fiber optics, that have become ubiquitous parts of contemporary life. His theoretical training in physics proved an astonishingly productive complement to the technical and applied skills of his electrical engineering students. Over his long and productive career, Shashanka was a Fellow of the American Physics Association, the American Physical Society, and the Optical Society of America, and he was a Senior Member of the IEEE. He twice directed the NATO Advanced Study Institute, first on the optical properties of solids, in August 1966, at Freiburg, Germany, and then on structurally disordered solids, in August 1974, at URI. He contributed significant research as a consultant to the U. S. Army Missile Command at Huntsville, AL, from 1964-1985, to the Argonne National Laboratory, from 1962-1972, and to several major private corporations. He also helped to spearhead a multi-institutional research program concerning thin films, won URI’s Award for Academic Excellence in 1983, and served as president of the URI chapter of the AAUP, the faculty union, in the early 1980s. During two sabbaticals, he was Visiting Professor Laboratoire des Hautes Pressions, in Bellevue, France from 1972-1973, and he was the Indian Telephone Industries’ Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore, India from 1984-1985. Shashanka was known in many circles as a creative and gracious host of parties and many kinds of social events, for example entertaining musician Ravi Shankar and poet Allen Ginsberg at his home when these men visited Kingston. In another example of his diverse skills and interests, Shashanka was an accomplished distance runner from the mid 70s through the early 80s. Throughout his life, he used his humor and intellect to defend reason over superstition and to promote the ideals of personal freedom, social responsibility, and economic justice—doing so with equal impact and aplomb among his academic peers at the University Club and among his drinking buddies in Matunuck. He resided in South Kingstown for 46 years. Visiting hours will be held at Avery-Storti funeral home in Wakefield on Saturday, August 11, from 1:30-4:00 pm. Funeral service will be private at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, we suggest a donation to the American Civil Liberties Union, the United States Treasury, or the charity of your choice. For guest book and condolences, averystortifuneralhome.com.