Srinivasan Chandrasekaran

Srinivasan Chandrasekaran (born 1945) is an Indian organic and organometallic chemist, academic and a former chair of the Department of Organic Chemistry and the Division of Chemical Sciences. He was also a former Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Indian Institute of Science. He was known for his research on organic reaction mechanisms and organic synthesis. and was an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, The World Academy of Sciences 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 1989, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

S. Chandrasekaran was born on 15 November 1945 in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.He did his college studies at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College of Madras University from where he completed his graduate and master's degrees and secured a PhD from the same university in 1972, studying under the guidance of S. Swaminathan. His thesis was based on Oxy-Cope rearrangement and on the synthesis of novel norbornane derivatives. He stayed in the US for one more year, resuming his research at Corey's laboratory before returning to India in 1977 to join IIT, Kanpur as a lecturer in chemistry. After 12 years of service there, he shifted his base to Bengaluru to continue his service at the Indian Institute of Science. He held several positions at IISc including those of the chair of Department of Organic Chemistry and the Division of Chemical Sciences as well as the Dean of the Faculty of Science.

Legacy During his post-doctoral studies with Corey, Chandrasekaran was able to accomplish the synthesis of gibberellic acid, a plant growth hormone, successfully for the first time. His research has been documented by way of several articles published in peer-reviewed journals and ResearchGate, an online article repository has listed 318 of them. Besides, he has contributed chapters to two books; 3 chapters to the Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis and one chapter to Particle Swarm Optimization. He has also mentored several scholars in their studies and has delivered keynote addresses and plenary speeches. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as their fellow the same year and the Indian National Science Academy and The World Academy of Sciences followed suit in 1992 and 1999 respectively. The other awards he has received include Silver Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India, Golden Jubilee Commemoration Medal (2007) of Indian National Science Academy and the Alumni Award of Excellence of Indian Institute of Science. He has also held the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of Department of Science and Technology and the Distinguished Fellowship of the Science and Engineering Research Board.

Selected bibliography Chapters in books

Articles