Rahul Sahu

For Rahul Sahu, NPTEL connects two important parts of his life: his work as an engineering educator and his ongoing research. His wife, who is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Government Engineering College (GEC), Raipur, has been taking the same NPTEL courses as him for the past two years. They have worked through assignments and learned alongside each other, making the experience a shared one. When they travelled to IIT Kharagpur to receive their NPTEL Star awards, it marked a milestone they had reached together.

Rahul’s own association with NPTEL began much earlier, during his M.Tech at IIT Bombay. At the time, he used these lectures mainly as study material and knew little about the certification opportunities. After joining GEC Raipur in 2016, he encountered the platform again during his college’s National Board of Accreditation (NBA) process, and  took a course taught by Dr. S K Das Mondal, a professor from IIT Kharagpur. By 2019, he was taking NPTEL courses more seriously and appeared for his first proctored examination.

His reasons for learning changed further when he began his PhD at IIT Bhilai in July 2022. Research in Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer led him towards courses that could strengthen his understanding of the subjects he was investigating. Among them were ‘Microfluidics’ and ‘Advanced Fluid Mechanics’, taught by Dr. Suman Chakraborty, now Director of IIT Kharagpur. Rahul particularly valued the teaching, assignments and depth of the course material.

“The Microfluidics and Advanced Fluid Mechanics courses were really helpful for my PhD research on Electrohydrodynamic flow,” he says.

Their usefulness did not end with his research. The fluid mechanics courses also strengthened his teaching, allowing him to bring what he had learnt into the classroom.

This connection between learning and practice has kept him returning to NPTEL. He has completed approximately 21 courses, topped four and secured a place among the top two per cent in a few more. The 6 NPTEL Star awards, his first in July 2025, was especially meaningful because his wife was a recipient too. Their shared effort had brought them to the same milestone. This year, the occasion is set to become even more special. Rahul’s sister is also expected to receive an NPTEL award alongside his wife. For the family, having all three receive their awards in the presence of their parents will make it a particularly proud and memorable moment.

NPTEL has also taken him out of his comfort zone. A Thermodynamics course taught by  Dr S R Kale, IIT Delhi professor, required conventional written assignments and examinations, with scanned answers uploaded instead of the multiple-choice format he was accustomed to. Writing such an examination after more than a decade proved a distinctive challenge. More recently, he faced a practical difficulty when his allotted examination centre was around 30 to 35 kilometres from the main city. Yet these experiences have not diminished his enthusiasm for the platform. Rahul continues to recommend NPTEL to his students, while hoping to see more advanced software and simulation courses, particularly in ANSYS and OpenFOAM, to support those undertaking research.

For Rahul, learning through NPTEL has taken different forms over the years: first as a student learning through online lectures, then as a researcher looking for answers to specialised questions, and now as a teacher encouraging others to learn.

Along the way, it has become more than a platform for completing courses or receiving recognition. It has become part of his academic journey, connecting his teaching, research, and the shared experience of learning with his family.

~written by Sania K J