Ponnambalam Kumaraswamy was a leading hydrologist from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1972 although his only formal education was a Civil Engineering

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 degree from College of Engineering, Guindy

College of Engineering, Guindy

College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, India, is India's oldest engineering and technical institution, having been established in 1794. Today it is one of the four constituent colleges of Anna University, Chennai....

, University of Madras

University of Madras

The University of Madras is a public research university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the three oldest universities in India...

. Before his death in 1988, at 57 years old, he was the only one to have received both the Homi Bhabha Fellowship 1967-69 (he spent his time at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a research institution in India dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is located at Navy Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai...

, Bombay, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, Cambridge, Massachusetts doing research in Groundwater modeling) and the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship 1975-77, two of the country's top research awards.

During the period of Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship he created the first comprehensive 20 volume hydrological atlas of Tamil Nadu State of India including mathematical models, details of hydraulic structures, among others.