Srikumar Banerjee, a leading expert in Materials and Technology in the country and director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has been appointed as chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and will take charge on December 1.
Dr. Banerjee will take over from Anil Kakodkar, who will be retiring on November 30, DAE officials said here today.
The 63-year-old Dr. Banerjee became director of BARC in April 2004 after being the director of Materials Group and is an officer of 11th batch of prestigious BARC Training School.
He has made outstanding contributions in many materials related areas in both basic and applied areas.
His comprehensive work on the physical metallurgy of Zirconium alloys is widely quoted in scientific literature, sources said.
A Padmashri awardee, Dr. Banerjee’s work has also provided a basis for developing a novel fabrication schedule for pressure tubes used in the Indian Pressurised Heavywater Reactors (PHWRs).
Dr. Banerjee did his B. Tech and PhD from IIT Kharagpur and is also a visiting faculty member at various overseas institutions including University of Sussex, U.K., Max Planck Institute for Metallurgy, Germany, University of Cincinnati, and Ohio State University, U.S.
He received the Padmashri in 2005 and is also a recipient of several other prestigious awards including Indian National Science Academy’s Young Scientist Award in 1976, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in engineering in 1989, G. D. Birla Gold Medal in 1997 and Materials Society of India’s Distinguished Material Scientist of the year 2008.
