K. Chidananda Gowda

K. Chidananda Gowda (born 15 June 1942) is an Indian academic who served as the Vice-Chancellor of the Kuvempu University, which is located in the state of Karnataka, India. He is also the son-in-law of the Kannada Poet, Kuvempu, after whom the Kuvempu University is named. He returned to Bangalore and completed his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science in 1979. He married Tarini, the second daughter of Kuvempu. He also spent two years at NASA in the United States and one year at INRIA in France for conducting post-doctoral research.

Education He earned his Bachelor of Engineering in 1964 from University Visveswaraya College of Engineering in Bangalore, followed by his Master of Engineering in 1969 from M.S. University of Baroda. He then received his Ph.D. in 1979 from Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. His Post-Doctoral Research was two years with NASA in New York, USA from 1981-1983 and 1 year with INRIA in Paris, France from 1989-1990.

Career Prof. Chidananda Gowda joined the Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering in Mysore as a Professor in the Computer science department and later went on to head the department. He also served as the Vice Principal of the College for about 5 years and later as the Principal for about 1.5 years. He was also a visiting professor at INRIA. He was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the Kuvempu University on 18 January 2002, a post which he held until 19 January 2006. He has chaired technical conferences in Zurich, Paris, Tokyo and Luxembourg. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the International School of Information Management, University of Mysore, Mysore.

During his tenure as the Vice-Chancellor, he faced allegations that the University was being used as a training centre for Naxalites. He is credited to have improved the infrastructure at the University. He was also responsible for starting new departments of business administration, microbiology, biochemistry in the University. The distance education program saw a significant growth in his tenure. In 2019 he received the Rajyotsava award.