Professor Kopalapillai (Kopan) Mahadeva MSc, PhD(Birm) Hon DLitt, FEng, FIET, FCMI (Life), FRSPH (Life), January 1934 – January 2023
Published: Fri 3 Mar 2023
We wish to announce with sadness, the passing of Professor Kopalapillai (Kopan) Mahadeva on the 14 January 2023 at Charing Cross Hospital in London.
Professor Kopalapillai Mahadeva started work in Sri Lanka as a design, construction, and maintenance engineer in the Public Works Department, Ceylon Government, and then was a commissioned Officer in the Ceylon Engineers (Volunteers) Regiment of the Ceylon Army.
He and his wife, Dr Seethadevi Mahadeva, emigrated to Birmingham, U.K. in 1961 and he completed a MSc Course in Engineering Production and Management, including an ergonomics project, followed by a Research Project to obtain his PhD in Engineering Production (Operational Research) at the university in 1962.
He was also, in 1965, a lecturer and Acting Supervisor of the MSc in Work Design & Ergonomics course. He went on to be self-employed, as an industrial and management consultant from Birmingham to small and medium-scale Midlands industries.
He returned to Sri Lanka with his wife and two daughters and was the Director and Chief Executive of the UN-ILO-funded Small Industry Service Institute of Ceylon, assisting 3,000 industries. He carried out a study tour of Europe, visiting industrial enterprises.
He was the Director/Chief Engineer at MITE Organization, Colombo, under which he built Jaffna and Chunakkam market. He was also Director for the Industrial Development Board of Ceylon, and the State Trading Corporation and Chairman of the North Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He then returned to the U.K. with his wife and now four children in 1978 as a full-time Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Engineering Production, University of Birmingham, and took on the leadership of the Hampshire Research, for the National Health Service and the university.
Following that, he was Professor of Production Engineering and Management in the University of West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago between 1980 and 1984.
After returning to the U.K., he was a Visiting Professor in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at Birmingham City University (formerly Birmingham Polytechnic, formerly UCE). He also was an industrial consultant for WMEB and a leader of SERC’s AMT Research Project.
He then pursued his interests as a poet, author and publisher of English and Tamil poetry and literature books, and even a little bit of acting. This included founding and running ELAB (Eelavar Literature Academy of Britain) and Century House Publications.