Puliyakot Keshava Menon (1917 – 22 October 1979) was an Indian mathematician best known as Director of the Joint Cipher Bureau.
[1] His sudden demise on 22 October 1979, ended active research in the areas of number theory, combinatorics, algebra and cryptography.
In 1941, the University of Madras awarded him a MSc Degree with a thesis entitled "Contributions to the theory of multiplicative arithmetic functions".
Thereafter he was appointed lecturer at the Annamalai University, where he served for two years, before joining the staff of Madras Christian College again as a professor and warden of Seliyur Hall.
He was devoted to his research work along with teaching, and, in 1948, he submitted his dissertation on "Contributions to the theory of numbers" for which he was conferred the highest and rarest degree of Doctor of Science (DSc).