Bangalore: Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of research at HP (Hewlett-Packard) and director of HP Labs will be leaving the post on April 15. In his absence, Chandrakant Patel, a senior fellow at HP who is the director of its Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group will head HP labs.

The research and development organization of HP which Banerjee was heading has been under inspection as the company is trying hard to regain its reputation for innovation.

 Prith, an Indian American head of HP labs for the last five years, will be working for an organization based outside U.S.; details regarding the organization is not yet revealed.

Prith who joined HP in the year 2007 has played a key role in developing technical policies for the company, as the senior vice president of research. Before joining HP he worked as the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Prith has been recognized with numerous honours such as the Frederick Emmons Terman Award, Taylor L. Booth Education award, University Scholar award, Presidential Young Investigator Award, IBM Young Faculty Development Award and the President of India Gold Medal from the IIT, Kharagpur.

He earned his Ph.D and M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and holds an engineering degree in Electrical and communication engineering from IIT, Kharagpur.