SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – Lawrence Technological University President Virinder Moudgil received the distinguished alumnus award from Banaras Hindu University, the top-ranked educational institution in India. Moudgil became LTU’s president in July 2012 after serving as provost of Oakland University.

Other alumni honored in this category included J.B. Patnaik, the governor of India’s state of Assam; India Supreme Court Judge B.S. Chauhan; and U.R. Rao, the father of India’s space program.

During his return to India, Moudgil signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Institute of Technology at Banaras Hindu University that authorizes discussions on mutual topics of interest in engineering and technology. Student and faculty exchanges and collaboration on academic programs  will be considered in the future.

Banaras was founded in 1916 by Madan Mohan Malaviya, a prominent leader in the Indian independence movement who served as president of the Indian National Congress on four occasions. The distinguished alumni awards were presented Dec. 23 at the conclusion of a year-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of Malaviya’s birth. The closing ceremony was attended by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

Banaras is one of the largest residential universities in Asia with over 20,000 students and 140 academic departments. Mahatma Gandhi delivered his first public address in India at the university.

Moudgil received his PhD on zoology-biochemistry in 1972. He was a research fellow in India for two years before coming to the United States in 1973 to take a post-doctoral fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He has been an active researcher on breast cancer, and has received nearly $3 million in grant and research support awards from the National Institutes of Health and others.

His research on steroid hormone action and cancer has resulted in wide recognition and more than 200 publications in scientific journals, edited books, book chapters, and scientific presentations.

Moudgil joined the faculty of Oakland University in 1976 and was chair of the Biological Sciences Department before serving as the university’s provost from 2001 to 2012, when he became president of Lawrence Tech.

At Oakland University, he co-chaired the steering committee that established a partnership with Beaumont Health System to create the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, which enrolled its charter class in 2011. He played a key role in the partnership that brought a branch of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School to the OU campus.

Moudgil has also held an adjunct professorship at Wayne State University; was a visiting scientist at universities in Serbia, France, and India; and was a consultant to the United Nations Development Program.
He has presented invited lectures on international scientific platforms and has chaired scientific sessions and symposia in the US, Czechoslovakia, Spain, the Netherlands, and India. He is the editor-in-chief of the book series “Hormones in Health and Disease” and the organizer of the international Meadow Brook Conferences on Steroid Receptors in Health and Disease. He has served as a regular member of the NIH peer review study sections.

Active in many professional and community organizations, Moudgil is a director of Automation Alley and he serves on the Professional Advisory Committee of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School and the Board and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Detroit Zoological Society. He also chaired the Academic Officers Committee (Provost Council) of the Presidents Council of the State Universities of Michigan from 2007–11.

Moudgil’s many honors include the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of State Universities’ Award, Oakland University Foundation Research Excellence Award, Michigan International Chamber of Commerce Academic Leadership Award, Michigan Association of Physicians of Indian Origin Academic Excellence Award, Beaumont Health System Chief Medical Officer Citation Award, the Marian P. Wilson Award, and the George Wibby Award.

Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, is a private university founded in 1932 that offers more than 100 programs through the doctoral level in its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. Bloomberg BusinessWeek lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 20 percent of universities for return on undergraduate tuition investment and highest in the Detroit metropolitan area.  Lawrence Tech is also listed in the top tier of Midwestern universities by U.S. News and World Report and the Princeton Review. Students benefit from small class sizes and experienced faculty who provide a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 102-acre campus include over 60 student clubs and organizations and a growing roster of NAIA varsity sports.