Mangaluru: Former Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University K. Byrappa passed away on Monday July 31. He was 69. He is survived by his wife Sunita, who is a retired professor of English, and two sons, Shayan, who is in the United States, and Nayan, who is working in the University of Mysuru.

Byrappa hailed from Mysuru. He was the eighth Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University.

Sources in Mangalore University said that Byrappa suffered cardiac arrest at Bengaluru airport early this morning while on his way to Belagavi.

Byrappa was a well-known researcher in Materials Science. He had obtained a Ph.D. from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia in Materials Science in 1981. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Moscow State University during 1981-82.

He had working and spoken knowledge of Spanish, Japanese and Russian languages.

During his tenure as Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University from June 2014 to June 2018, research programmes got a boost with the H index going up from 17 to above 50. He was responsible for getting RUSA and PURSE grants to the university, sources said.