Ashok Jhunjhunwala is an Indian academic and innovator. He received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and PhD from the University of Maine. He has been a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras since 1981. He is the President of IIT Madras Research Park and Chairman of International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. During his career, he has contributed extensively to technology innovation and adoption in the Indian context.
Koppillil Radhakrishnan is an Indian space scientist who headed the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) between November 2009 and December 2014 as Chairman of Space Commission, Secretary of the Department of Space and Chairman of ISRO. Prior to this, he was the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (2007-2009) and Director of National Remote Sensing Agency (2005-2008) of the Department of Space. He had a brief stint of five years (2000-2005) in the Ministry of Earth Sciences as Director of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS). Under his leadership of ISRO, India became the first country to reach Mars in its first attempt.
Harish Chandra Verma, popularly known as HCV, is an Indian experimental physicist, author and emeritus professor of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. In 2021, he was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, by the Government of India for his contribution to Physics Education. His field of research is nuclear physics.
Suhas Pandurang Sukhatme is an Indian scientist, teacher, author and a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of the Government of India, known for his expertise in heat transfer and energy technologies. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2001, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri.
Munirathna Anandakrishnan was an Indian civil engineer, educationist, a chairman of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and a vice-chancellor of Anna University. He was also an Advisor to the Government of Tamil Nadu on Information Technology and e-Governance. A winner of the National Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil), he was honored by the Government of India, in 2002, with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.
Sarvagya Singh Katiyar FRSC popularly known as S. S. Katiyar, was an Indian scientist specializing in enzymology, and the founder Director of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow. He is a former president of the Association of Indian Universities and a former vice chancellor of Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur and Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology. He was honoured by the Government of India in 2003 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award, followed by Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, in 2009.
Swaminathan Sivaram is an Indian polymer chemist, inventor, institution builder and a former director of the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. He is known for his pioneering work on alkylation of tertiary alkyl halides with trialkylaluminum and olefin polymerization and holds the highest number of US patents by an Indian working outside the US. He is a fellow of several significant professional organizations. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2006, for his contributions to Indian science.
Vaidyeswaran Rajaraman is an Indian engineer, academic and writer, known for his pioneering efforts in the field of Computer Science Education in India. He is credited with the establishment of the first academic program in computer science in India, which he helped initiate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1965. An elected fellow of all the Indian science academies, he is a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in Science and Technology category for young scientists and several other honors including Om Prakash Bhasin Award and Homi Bhabha Prize. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honor of the Padma Bhushan, in 1998, for his contributions to science.
Kasturi Lal Chopra was an Indian materials physicist and a former director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He was the founder of the Thin Film Laboratory at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the Microscience Laboratory at IIT, Kharagpur and held several US and Indian patents for his research findings. Author of a number of books on thin film technology, he was a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2008, for his contributions to science and engineering.
Narayanan Chandrakumar is an Indian chemical physicist and a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He was the founder of the first Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) laboratory in India and is known for developing a new technique for NMR imaging and diffusion measurement. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1996, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
Tushar Kanti Chakraborty is an Indian organic chemist and a professor at the Indian Institute of Science. He has served as a director of the Central Drug Research Institute and as a chief scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology. He is known for the discovery of novel macrocyclic systems. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2002, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
Subramanian Anantha Ramakrishna is a professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur specializing in optics and condensed matter physics. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, India's highest prize for excellence in science, mathematics and technology, in the physical sciences category in the year 2016. Ramakrishna obtained his M.Sc. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1995 after pursuing the integrated 5-year M.Sc. programme and secured his Ph.D. from Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, in 2001. His thesis was titled "Light transport and localization in Active and passive random media" written under the supervision of Prof. N. Kumar. He spent two years at the Imperial College, London, as a postdoctoral researcher and joined the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur as an assistant professor in May 2003, where he now holds the position of professor. In July 2020, Prof. Ramakrishna took charge as Director of the CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation in Chandigarh on lien from IIT Kanpur.
Subramania Ranganathan (1934–2016), popularly known as Ranga, was an Indian bioorganic chemist and professor and head of the department of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was known for his studies on synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry and was an elected fellow Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian Academy of Sciences The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1977, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
Man Mohan Suri (1928–1981) was an Indian mechanical engineer and the Director of Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), Durgapur. He is best known for inventing Suri Transmission, a hydromechanical transmission unit, reported to increase the efficiency of diesel locomotives and he held the patent for the inventions. The technology is known to have led to 36 patent specifications in eleven countries. He is also credited with the conceptualization of Swaraj farm tractor, a product of Punjab Tractors Ltd. and held another patent for his development of Railway truck wheel assembly. He received the fourth highest Indian civilian award of the Padma Shri in 1961. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1962. The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi has instituted an annual award, Padmashri Manmohan Suri Project Award, for honoring the best mechanical project by its alumni.
Mangalore Anantha Pai was an Indian electrical engineer, academic and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. A former professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, he is known for his contributions in the fields of power stability, power grids, large scale power system analysis, system security and optimal control of nuclear reactors and he has published 8 books and several articles. Pai is the first India born scientist to be awarded a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Bhaskar Dattatraya Kulkarni (1949–2019), popularly known as B. D. among his friends and colleagues, was an Indian chemical reaction engineer and a Distinguished Scientist of Chemical Engineering and Process Development at the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. An INSA Senior Scientist and a J. C. Bose fellow, he was known for his work on fluidized bed reactors and chemical reactors. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, The World Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1988.
Yogesh Moreshwar Joshi is an Indian chemical engineer, rheologist and the Pandit Girish & Sushma Rani Pathak Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He is known for his studies on metastable soft matter and is an elected fellow of the Society of Rheology, Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and Indian National Academy of Engineering. In 2015, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded Joshi the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology for his contributions to Engineering Sciences. In 2023, he received prestigious J C Bose fellowship constituted by the Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India.
Atma Ram was an Indian scientist. In his memory, the Atmaram Award is given by the Central Institute of Hindi, an autonomous institute run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India. He was the Director of Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute and assumed the post of Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research on 21 August 1966. He was also Principal Advisor to Prime Minister and Union Cabinet on Science and Technology from 1977 to 1983.
Sudhir Kumar Jain is the incumbent and 28th Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University. He is a civil engineer by education and has formerly served three terms as the founding director of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. He has carried out intensive research and development in the fields of seismic design codes, dynamic of buildings, and post-earthquake studies. Beside these, Jain has actively participated in teaching, research activities and development in earthquake engineering focused on developing countries. He is an elected fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering. He was also elected a member of U.S. National Academy of Engineering (2021) for leadership in earthquake engineering in developing countries.
Bushra Ateeq is a Professor and a Senior Fellow of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance in the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering (BSBE), IIT Kanpur specializing in cancer biology and molecular oncology. She was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in Medical Sciences in the year 2020. Her research interest involves exploration of the genetic and epigenetic changes that initiate cancer and its progression. She is also focusing on understanding the molecular events that drive cancer and resistance towards chemotherapeutic drugs.
