Chunni Lal Khetrapal

Chunni Lal Khetrapal (25 August 1937 – 21 July 2021) was an Indian chemical physicist and a vice chancellor of the Allahabad University. He was known for his studies in chemical physics, particularly in the field of Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He was an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. 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 1982, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

C. L. Khetrapal, born on 25 August 1937 in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, did his college studies at the Allahabad University from where he graduated in 1957 and completed his master's degree in 1959. He started his career by joining the Atomic Energy Establishment Training School, Mumbai the same year, simultaneously doing his doctoral research at Mumbai University to secure a PhD in 1965. In between, he worked at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research under S. S. Dharmatti for a while and moved to Switzerland where he did his post-doctoral studies at the University of Basel from 1967 till 1969. Then he shifted his base to the US to work at the Liquid Crystal Institute of Kent State University as a research assistant. He returned to India in 1973 and joined the Raman Research Institute as an assistant professor where he spent over eleven years till his move to the Indian Institute of Science as a professor and the head of the Sophisticated Instruments Facility in 1984. On his superannuation from service in 1998, he was appointed the vice chancellor of the Allahabad University. Apart from pioneering NMR studies in India, he established the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Institute of Professional Studies at Allahabad University. He was one of the founders of the National Magnetic Resonance Society and the Centre of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance and served as the first president of the former and was an incumbent director of the latter. He is also a recipient of the C. V. Raman Award of the University Grants Commission of India (1996), Goyal Prize (1996), P. C. Ray Memorial Medal of the Indian Science Congress Association (2002) and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Indian Chemical Society (2005). and N. R. Dhar Memorial Lecture Award of National Academy of Sciences, India in 2005. He was an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India.