Dr Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar is an academician, administrator and author and is the Chairman of University Grants Commission since February 2022. He is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Delhi. M Jagadesh Kumar took over as VC of JNU from Sudhir Kumar Sopory in January 2016. He became the chairperson of the University Grants Commission on 4 February 2022.

Dr Kumar was born in Mamidala village in Tipparthi mandal, Nalgonda district, Telangana. He did his Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras followed by post-doctoral research at University of Waterloo, Canada. He works in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology (nano-electronic devices, nanoscale devices, device design and power semiconductor devices). He is currently a fellow at Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, National Academy of Sciences, India and Indian National Academy of Engineering among others. He is Chairman of the governing body of National Council of Science Museums. He has received the “ISA-VSI TechnoMentor Award”, with the award being presented by Dr. R. Chidambaram (Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India).