Biographical note

Dr. A. K. Tyagi is currently Dean and Senior Professor at the Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, India. He is also an Honorary Professor at JNCASR, Bengaluru. Other recent positions include as Director of the Chemistry Group, Director of the Bioscience Group (both at BARC), and Distinguished Scientist (DAE). He completed postdoctoral research at Max-Planck Institute, Germany (1995-96), and has since received numerous prestigious awards for his work. Dr. Tyagi’s research interests cover areas of nanomaterials, functional materials, nuclear materials, metastable materials, and hybrid materials. He has published over 650 papers in international journals, 12 books, and several review articles, as well as having guided 47 PhD students to date. He is also a Fellow of various national and international science and engineering academies, and has been a Visiting Scientist at various institutions in Europe, Asia, and South Africa. Dr. Srikumar Banerjee is presently DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, India. He completed his BTech inMetallurgical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1967. He joined the Metallurgy Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, in 1968 after graduating from 11th batch of BARC training School. He obtained his PhD in 1974 from IIT, Kharagpur. He has occupied several important positions such as Head, Metallurgy Division, BARC, Director, Materials Group, BARC, and Director, BARC, and subsequently became Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, India, in 2009, and superannuated in April 2012. He has done pioneering work in the field of martensitic transformations, rapid solidification, omega transformation, quasi-crystalline solids, and shape memory alloys. He has been a senior visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex, UK, Humboldt Foundation Fellow at Max-Planck Institute for Metallforschung, Stuttgart, Germany, and a visiting Professor at Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. In recognition of his seminal contribution to the field of Materials Science, Dr. Banerjee has been conferred with numerous national and international prestigious awards, including INSA Young Scientist Award (1976), National Metallurgists' Day Award (1981), Acta Metallurgica Outstanding paper Award (1984), Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (1989); GD Birla Gold Medal of The Indian Institute of Metals (1997), INSA Prize for Materials Science, MRSI - Superconductivity and Material Science Prize (2003); Indian Nuclear Society Award (2003), Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2004), Prof. Brahm Prakash Memorial Medal (2004) from INSA, Padma Shri from Government of India (2005), Distinguished Materials Scientist Award from MRSI (2008), Indian Science Congress Association’s Excellence in Science and Technology Award (2009), Ram Mohun Puraskar of Rammohun Mission for outstanding contribution to Nuclear Science (2010), CNR Rao Prize Lecture in Advanced Materials (2011), and M. N. Saha Birth Centenary Award (2012) from Indian Science Association Congress. He has been conferred with several Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) degrees from various universities and institutions, including Sathyabama University, Chennai; Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur; Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; Guru Ghasidas University, Chattisgarh, and University of Calcutta. He is an elected Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy, Indian National Academy of Engineering, and Third World Academy of Sciences.