Mumbai: Patna-born child prodigy Dr Tathagat Tulsi has taken up a job as professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay at the age of 22. Tulsi is possibly the youngest Assistant Professor at IIT. He will join the IIT faculty at Powai in Mumbai next week and teach Physics. IIT Bombay sent his appointment letter sent on June 30 in which IIT Bombay Director Professor Devang V Khakar informed Tulsi that the institute's Board of Governors had offered him assistant professorship on contract at the Department of Physics.He had finished high school at the age of nine, earned his BSc degree at 10, and MSc degree at 12 and then received his Doctorate in Quantum Computing from the Indian Institute of Science at the age of 21.
The Bihar boy has already turned down an offer from Waterloo University in Canada despite a lucrative pay package.“I turned down Waterloo despite an impressive pay package because I do not want to go abroad now,” Tulsi told The Indian Express over the phone from Patna.He was also offered a job with the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Bhopal.In 2003, the prestigious Time magazine named him among the world's seven most gifted youngsters, though he went into a shell after an international delegation called him a fake prodigy in 2001. Yusuf shamsi@ DUBAI