NYU-Poly engineers a move at the top

Katepalli Sreenivasan named president of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.


EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICIST Katepalli Sreenivasan, 65, was recently selected to be the new president of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University to help lead NYU back to the forefront of engineering, technology innovation and entrepreneurship.

Ralph C. Alexander, chair of the board of trustees and himself an alumnus, affectionately calls Mr. Sreenivasan, who will also become NYU's dean of engineering in July, "Sreeni." "Sreeni is the best; he has the technical background," said Mr. Alexander. "And he is a global citizen, someone credible around the world, but also credible in Washington Square." A professor at Yale and at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics before coming to NYU-Poly in 2008, Mr. Sreenivasan takes over as the average SAT score for students admitted to the school is up more than 250 points in the past five years. Mr. Alexander likes to think the American Dream was born at NYU-Poly, where 45% of enrolled students are Pell Grant-eligible, and many are the first in their family to attend college.

"We take students from different segments of life and help them be very productive members of society," said Mr. Sreenivasan. "Cybersecurity, wireless networking and bio medicine are our really strong areas. I want to recruit students in these areas and make them among the very best in the country."

Correction: Ralph Alexander affectionately calls Katepalli Sreenivasan "Sreeni." This nickname was misstated in an earlier version of the Corporate Ladder, originally published online April 21, 2013.

A version of this article appears in the April 22, 2013, print issue of Crain's New York Business as "NYU-POLY ENGINEERS A MOVE AT THE TOP".