Raj khanna

Born July 3rd, 1935

Education
He attended the University of Delhi to obtain a Bachelors of Science with Honors in Physics with a minor in Math & Chemistry. His hobbies included billiards and tennis. He went on to pursue a Masters of Science in Physics. He went to the India Institute of Science in Bangalore, India where he earned his phd in Physical Chemistry/Chemical Physics. He worked with nobel prize winner Sivi Raman, who focused on optical properties of solids using infrared spectroscopy. After moving to the U.S. for doctoral work, he returned to New Delhi, India for his marriage.

Career
Because of his PhD thesis in Vibration Spectroscopy, he was asked to become an associate professor at the University of Maryland in 1971. He later was established as a full professor in 1981.

Professor Khanna came first to Oregon State University (1964) then to the University of Maryland as Research Associate (1964-67). He joined the faculty in 1967 and became professor in 1982. He became Emeritus faculty in 2003 and maintained research in infrared measurements with recent support from NASA. Having approximately 100 research publications, and having mentored 19 graduate students who obtained their advanced degrees, Raj Khanna contributed to this department's reputation in research and education.

Retirement
Retired in spring 2003 from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been appointed as Professor Emeritus, effective retroactively to July 1, 2003.

Other Contributions
While a full time professor, he headed the “Third World Foundation”, which was a collaborative effort between scientists and doctors to use IR Spectroscopy and other imaging techniques to locate and isolate geographical regions related to vector air-borne diseases. Throughout his career, he also was a primary consultant on government and commercial technologies related to NASA space exploration, weather satellite cloud scanning, and the use of Infrared Spectroscopy in Army Intelligence Satellite Imaging.

Laboratories and Affiliate Institutes
Chidicon Medical Center, International Institutes of Advanced Research and Training, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. Institute of Neurocybernetics was named after Professor Raj Khanna of University of Maryland, College Park USA.

Favorites
His favorite color was dark grey. His favorite class was trigonometry. His favorite animal was a baby cow. His favorite bird was a red finch.

Family
Born to Mr. Harnam Das Khanna and Mrs. Lila Vati Kapoor. Married Shukla Khanna on August 13th, 1963. He had his first child, a baby girl, Seema in 1970 and then a son, Ravi in 1976.

Childhood
Attended City Element School followed by Dav Primary School in Lahore, United India. At the age of 12, he experienced the partition of India and Pakistan and moved to New Delhi India. He sold news papers for money. As a child, he enjoyed flying kites on his roof. My father enjoyed classical Indian music, instrumentals and bhajans.

Death
Dr. Raj Khanna passed away on June 30th, 2008 at 10:55pm in the company of his family after battling a rare cancer.

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