Amar Gopal Bose '51, SM'52, ScD '46, Professor (1955-2001)
Prof. Amar Gopal Bose, Electrical Engineering (1955-01) ’51, SM ’52, ScD ’56 Courtesy of the MIT Museum
Prof. Amar Gopal Bose teaching Courtesy of the MIT Museum
Amar Gopal Bose was the second South Asian American student to attend MIT and the very first South Asian to be appointed to the faculty of MIT. He was born in Philadelphia in 1929 and received his BS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He became an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1955.
Bose's father, Noni Gopal Bose, was a freedom fighter who sought refuge in America after being arrested for his protests against British rule at the University of Calcutta. Amar Gopal Bose joined MIT in 1947, the year India gained independence. As a Freshman, he met India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru when he visited MIT. Encouraged by his mentor, Professor Norbert Wiener, Bose went to India on a Fulbright Fellowship where he spent a year at the Indian Statistical Institute in 1956.
Amar Gopal Bose went on to become the founder and chairman of Bose Corporation, gifting the majority of the company’s shares to MIT to advance the Institute’s education and research mission.
" MIT meant the world to him .. it was profoundly central to who he was. "- Judy Bose, daughter-in-law of Amar Bose