Ratan N. Tata awarded 2022 Hoover Medal

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Ratan Naval Tata, prominent engineer, entrepreneur, industrialist, and philanthropist of India, has been awarded the 2022 Hoover Medal by a board representing five engineering organizations: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); the American Society of Civil Engineers; the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers; the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Established in 1929, the medal commemorates the civic and humanitarian achievement of engineers and is conferred upon an engineer whose professional achievements and personal endeavors have advanced the well-being of humankind.

Tata was recognized as the 74^th recipient of the Hoover Medal in a private award ceremony in January at Somerset House in Mumbai, India, according to a March 6 press release from ASME.

Ponisseril Somasundaran, Ph.D., chair of the Hoover Board of Award and La von Duddleson Krumb Professor in the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Thomas Costabile, executive director/CEO of ASME presented the gold medal to Tata.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the board for the Tata Group, also attended the event.

The board summarized its selection of Tata “for leading the Tata Trusts that have helped millions of under-privileged people directly or indirectly through outstanding improvements in education, medicine, and rural development and for chairing the Tata Group, an innovative company that provides products, business consulting, and services in over 100 countries.”

Past recipients of the Hoover Medal include U.S. Presidents Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter, Apple Founder Steve Wozniak, Founder of HP David Packard, Moderna Co-Founder Robert Langer, Texas Instruments Co-Founder J. Erik Jonsson, and CEO of General Motors Alfred Sloan. Two of the past recipients of the Hoover Medal are from India: the late President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and N. R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys.

Tata was the chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, from 1991 through 2012, when he was named chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, Tata Industries, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Chemicals.