“On behalf of the entire institute, I heartily congratulate to our distinguished alumnus, Prof Thirumalai Venkatesan (1969/B.Sc/PH) on his well-deserved success. It has been a great honor for getting elected as the Fellow of The Royal Society. His outstanding work as a physicist and an educator, for long years has finally paid up.We are so pleased to see him accomplishing great things. Best wishes to bring more and more laurels for him and his profession. In the year 2017, he visited IIT Kharagpur his Alma mater to receive the prestigious Distinguished Alumnus Award”, said Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari, the Director of Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
Recently, Prof Venkatesan catalyzed the development of nanoscience in Signapore, where he served as the Director of the NUS Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute (NUSNNI) as well as the Provost Chair Professor of ECE, Physics, MSE and NGS. He was also the founding director of the surface modification lab at Rutgers University. Currently, he is the Director of the Center for Quantum Research and Technology at University of Oklahoma.
Prof Venkatesan pioneered the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process in its application to thin films of complex oxides and related multi component materials, which has transformed research on films/ hetero structures globally. As the inventor of the PLD process, he has published more than 800 papers, holds 35 patents and was ranked 66 in term of his citations among the top 100 physicists globally.
For about 17 years, he spent at Bell Labs and Bell core as a scientist and research manager, before becoming the Professor at University of Maryland for another 17 years. Prof Venkatesan is the winner of the George Pake Prize of the American Physical Society, IPS President’s gold medal, Bellcore Award of Excellence, University of Maryland Graduate Board award. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, World Innovation Forum, an honorary guest professor at Tsinghua University (Beijing) and academician of Asia-Pacific academy of materials.
Prof Venkatesan had graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur as B. Sc (Physics). Prof. Thirumalai Venkatesan obtained his M.Sc. degree in Physics at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He then received a Ph.D. from the University of New York. He is also responsible for several startup companies, Neocera, Neocera Magma, Blue Wave Semiconductors, Breathonix, Cellivate and Azometrix.
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Over sixty outstanding scientists from all over the globe have joined the Royal Society as Fellows and Foreign Members in the year 2021.
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