Indiana University
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NAME

Jacob Kythaparampil

Information:
Department of Telecommunications

kkythapa 'at' indiana 'dot' edu

Links:
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Biography:
I graduated in 1966 as a mechanical engineer in India and after a year’s stint as a teacher at my alma-mater I embarked on my industrial career of over 35 years with ICI India Ltd. This exposed me to various jobs in engineering and general management till I retired in early 2001. It was a very challenging phase of my life – working in fertilizer, explosives, and other heavy chemical plants. One of my childhood dreams had been to study in the US but circumstances did not permit this while I was working. This dream was finally fulfilled when I was accepted for the MS (MIME) program in fall 2001. After obtaining my MS in fall 2003 from IU, I spent a semester teaching at Shanghai University in China and then returned to pursue my PhD in the area of processes and effects of media using physiological responses from Jan 2004. My doctoral dissertation examines the use of heart rate variability in addition to traditional heart rate as an index of attention – with the view that such metrics would be of added benefit in trying to explain some non-intuitive results seen in media research. My first love has been to learn new things and my stay at IU in the last 5 years has given me ample opportunity to do so. In addition to this, I love teaching and I am indeed lucky that the majority of my Associate Instructor assignments were in courses with discussion sessions which offered direct interaction with students. Besides this, I spend some of my spare time trying to learn new languages – Chinese being the one I am currently attempting.