Sampat Kumar Tandon

Sampat Kumar Tandon (born 13 August 1945) is an Indian geologist and a professor emeritus of geology at the University of Delhi. He is a former pro-vice chancellor of Delhi University, Sir J. C. Bose Chair Professor of the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal and a D. N. Wadia Chair Professor of the department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Tandon is known for his geological studies of the Siwalik rocks and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World 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 for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1988. He was knighted by the Government of France with the title, Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 2009. His doctoral studies were at the University of Delhi and after securing a PhD, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi as a lecturer in 1966. In between, he did his post-doctoral studies at the Institute of Geosciences of Shizuoka University in 1981 with H. Okada and at the Department of Earth Sciences of University of Cambridge during 1984-85 under the guidance of P. F. Friend. He pioneered the physical dating techniques such as magnetic polarity, luminescence dating, fission track dating of zircons in India and he contributed to reconstruct the Late Cretaceous palaeogeography of Central India which revealed the impact of Deccan volcanism on contemporary sedimentary environments. ResearchGate and Google Scholar, two online repositories of scientific articles has listed 110 and 180 of them respectively. He sat in several government agencies as a member. He was a member of the project advisory committees of the Department of Science and Technology (1994–97), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (2001–05), Integrated Long-Term Program (2001–04) and Central Groundwater Board (2001–04) and chaired the Project Advisory Committee of the DST during 1998–2000. He presided the Indian Association of Sedimentologists (2003–12), and served as the vice president of the Geological Society of India during 2007-10 and 2010-13. He was a councillor of International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) during 2010-14 and has been serving as the vice president of the Indian Mineralogists Association since 2005. He was the convenor of the editorial committee of the University Grants Commission of India for promoting research at educational institutions in 2004 and was a member of the editorial board of Current Science (2003–13) He is the incumbent chairman of the research advisory council of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany and a member of the advisory committee of the Indian Statistical Institute.

Awards and honors Tandon received the Young Scientists Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1974 and the Krishnan Medal of the Indian Geophysical Union reached him in 1985. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as a fellow in 1987 The year 1999 brought him two elected fellowships, that of the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He was elected as a fellow by The World Academy of Sciences in 2001 and the Government of France honored him with the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques in 2009. The award orations delivered by him include Professor K.P. Rode Memorial Lecture of the Indian Science Congress Association in 2000 and the VII Karunakaran Endowment Memorial Lecture of Centre for Earth Science Studies, Thiruvananthapuram in 2006.

Selected bibliography