#14 - Kiruba Haran: Building an Electric Aircraft and Back to the Future

Kiruba Haran is an ECE professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he focuses on the big and long-term goal of creating an electric aircraft. After 13 years at GE, Dr. Haran came to UIUC to try out academia and become part of the Grainger CEME. Dr. Haran was born and raised in Sri Lanka and studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Obafemi Awolowo University and received his Ph.D. at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That's where he found his love for electrical machines. Dr. Haran's research is supported by organizations such as NASA and NSF. EPISODE LINKS: Kiruba Haran Lab's Website: https://haran.ece.illinois.edu/ Kiruba Haran's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiruba-haran OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:55 - Electric propulsion 17:00 - Sri Lanka, GE, UIUC 20:15 - How to make electric aircraft real 26:00 - Hydrogen economy 34:26 - Starting a company as a professor 39:50 - Space propulsion 44:15 - Sustainability and innovation 50:56 - Children 55:18 - Create cool shit, not RSOs 1:16:35 - Advice for young people 1:21:00 - Electric flying cars? 🚥Overrated or Underrated Section 🚥 1:23:46 - 🥼 The Flux Capacitor 1:25:20 - 🛫 Boom Supersonic 1:27:00 - ⚡️ Superconductivity 1:29:50 - 🕶 Engineering Vision/Leadership 1:31:08 - Closing words SOCIAL: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uiuctalkshow Twitter: https://twitter.com/uiuctalkshow TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uiuctalkshow Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ezoc4xJa4DrGq7N4lhqQn Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-uiuc-talkshow/id1611427075 Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1H9UJqXvJXr3qlx9c89Rv76c6IpnwGeC Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1H9UJqXvJXqdyEq7fuyUz9cmpdfqN1Rb What is the UIUC Talkshow? Our goal with this show is to introduce to the most interesting people and most interesting people from the UIUC campus. Learn more about Juan David & Aaryaman: Aaryaman https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaryaman-patel-779437205/ Juan David Website: https://www.juandavidcampolargo.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jdcampolargo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdcampolargo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdcampolargo/