Pushpak Bhattacharyya

Long before AI became a buzzword, Pushpak Bhattacharyya was quietly laying India’s linguistic foundations. A distinguished professor at IIT Bombay, where he holds the Major Bhagat Singh Rekhi Chair, he is often referred to as the ‘godfather of NLP in India’. His journey began with a BTech at IIT Kharagpur, followed by an MTech from IIT Kanpur, and a PhD from IIT Bombay in 1994.

Over three decades, Bhattacharyya has authored more than 350 research papers and guided over 300 students in topics ranging from machine translation to multilingual sentiment detection and computational sarcasm. His trailblazing projects include IndoWordNet, Indian‑language neural MT systems, sarcasm and emotion detection, and cognitively inspired NLP via eye‑tracking experiments.

Over the years, he has held major leadership roles, including director of IIT Patna (2015–20), president of the Association for Computational Linguistics (2016–17), and chair of the Bureau of Indian Standards’ AI Standardisation Committee.

His work has earned him numerous honours, including the Abdul Kalam National Fellowship, National Academy of Engineering fellowship, and recognition as an AI Disruptor in AIM’s global list.

Currently leading the Computation For Indian Language Technology (CFILT) lab at IIT Bombay, he also chairs the RBI’s FREE-AI ethical AI panel, shaping India’s fintech AI guidelines. Bhattacharyya’s vision continues to bridge India’s linguistic diversity and AI progress, making technology smarter, more sensitive, and truly inclusive.