Professor CNR Rao, the
pride of Karnataka
 Professor
C N R Rao is a noted scientist who has made Karnataka
proud with his ground breaking research in solid state and
material chemistry, surface science and related areas.
He pursued his graduation in science from the Mysore University
in 1951 and then went on to do his Post graduation in science
from Banaras Hindu University in 1953. Later he did his PhD
in 1958 from Purdue University, US, and DSc from Mysore University
in 1961. He has also received honoris causa doctorate degrees
from twenty-seven universities including Purdue, Bordeaux,
Banaras, Mysore, IIT Bombay, Kharagpur, Notre Dame, Novosibirsk,
Uppsala, Wales, Wroclaw and Sri Venkateswara University.
Some of the academic positions he has held in India and abroad
are:
- Head of the Department of Chemistry, IIT, Kanpur. Later,
he held the position of 'Dean of Research' of the Institute
(1963-77).
- Visiting professor for University of Oxford and Fellow,
St.Catherine's College, Oxford (1974-75).
- Distinguished visiting professor, Latrobe University,
Melbourne, Australia.
- Jawaharlal Nehru Professor, University of Cambridge and
Professional Fellow, King's College, Cambridge (1983-84)
- Director of IISc (1984-94).
He also served as the Chairman of the Indian Science Advisory
Council to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1985-89) and Scientific
Advisory Committee to the Union Cabinet (1997-98).
At present, he is the Honorary President of Jawaharlal Nehru
Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Member of
International Scientific Advisory Board of UNESCO, the Atomic
Energy Commission of India and the Executive Board of the Science
Institutes Group. He is also serving as the Chairman of the
Indo-Japan Science Council.
Research interests: He started his career working on
spectra and structure of molecules and moved to solid state
and materials chemistry (ssmc), surface science and related
areas. In ssmc, his interests are mainly in phenomena and properties
exhibited by transition metal oxide systems that include high
temperature conductivity, colossal magneto resistance and metal-insulation
transitions. His other interests are in synthesis and characterization
of designer solids with novel structures and properties. Nanoparticle
assemblies, open framework structures, surface spectroscopy
also come under his research areas.
His research group has around twenty-members and several other
colleagues. He has his research laboratories at JNCASR and IISc.
He has received many National and International honours for
his contributions in the field of scientific research. Listed
below are some of them:
International:
- ACS Centennial Foreign Fellowships by American Chemical
Society (1976)
- The Royal Society of Chemistry (London) Medal for outstanding
contributions to solid-state chemistry (1981).
- Honorary Fellowship, The Royal Society of Chemistry,
London (1989).
- Albert Einstein Gold Medal, UNESCO, Paris (1996).
- Hughes Medal, The Royal Society, London (2000)
National: · Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical sciences, Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research (1968).
- Jawaharlal Nehru Award for scientific research (1988).
- Shatabdi Puraskar, Indian Science Congress (1999).
Other awards and recognitions include Karnataka State Award
(1982), Distinguished Alumnus Medal, IISc (1983) and Sarabhai
Lectureship, Indian Council of Social Science Research (1989)
and Honorary Fellowships of IISc (1994). Presidents of India
honoured him with Padmashri in 1974 and Padma
Vibhushan in 1985.
He is married to Indumati Rao and has two children-Suchitra
and Sanjay. His hobbies include cooking, gardening, general
reading of fiction and non-fiction books.
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