Murali Sastry (born 10 June 1959) is an Indian material chemist,

nanomaterial Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...

scientist and the chief executive officer of the IITB-Monash Research Academy. He is a former chief scientist at Tata Chemicals and a former senior scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory. He is known for his studies on

surfaces A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. Surface or surfaces may also refer to: Mathematics *Surface (mathematics), a generalization of a plane which needs not be flat * Sur ...

, films and materials chemistry and is an elected fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences and the

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and List of Nobel laureates, Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it ...

. The

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR; IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada'') is a research and development (R&D) organisation in India to promote scientific, industrial and economic growth. Headquarter ...

, 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 2002, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

Murali Sastry, born on 10 June 1959 in the south Indian state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

, completed his master's degree in chemistry in 1982 at the

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras or IIT-M) is a Public university, public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence of India. As an Indian Institutes of ...

. He continued at the institute to secure a PhD in thin film technology in 1987 before doing his post-doctoral studies at the

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is a research center for physical and mathematical sciences, located in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The center operates under a tripartite agreement between the Gov ...

(1988–89) and Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste (1989–91). He joined QAD Global Resource Center in 1997 as a software engineer where he served in such positions as Technical Consultant and Project Manager till his move to the National Chemical Laboratory as a Senior Scientist. In 2005 he shifted to Tata Chemicals as the Chief Innovation Officer and after 6 years of service, he joined DSM India as the director of the Innovation Centre in 2011. When the then chief executive officer of IITB-Monash Research Academy retired in 2015, he was selected for the post and he holds the post till date. He has served as an INAE and C. V. Seshadri chair professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, DAE professor at the Central University, Hyderabad, and as a visiting scientist at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

(1998–99) and

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

(2001–03).

Legacy

Sastry's contributions are based on his researches focused on

thin films A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

and nano materials, as well as the commercial applications of the technologies he has developed. As the chief scientific officer of Tata Chemicals, he introduced a low-cost water purifier, ''Swach'', which utilized nano-silvers as the filtering agent. He established an innovation centre there which worked on a number of projects based on

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

. It was during his tenure as the CEO of IITB-Monash Research Academy, the institution set up a new headquarters in Mumbai where he oversees inter-disciplinary scientific research with participation from some of the leading Indian and overseas business houses. He has published his research by way of chapters contributed to books authored by others and over 360 peer-reviewed articles. He holds many US and Indian patents;

Justia Justia is an American website specializing in legal information retrieval. It was founded in 2003 by Tim Stanley, formerly of FindLaw, and is one of the largest online databases of legal cases. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, Cal ...

Patents has listed 24 of these. He has also been associated with many governmental and semi-governmental science agencies such as

Department of Biotechnology The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. ...

, Department of Science and Technology, Presidential Nanotechnology Committee and the

as well as a number of science journals.

Awards and honors

Sastry received the CSIR Young Scientist Award in 1993 and the Bronze Medal of the

Chemical Research Society of India Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) is an India based scientific society dedicated to the field of chemistry. It was established in 1999 as a part of celebrating India's 50th anniversary of independence Independence is a conditi ...

in 2002. The same year, he was elected as a fellow by the

. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Shanti or Shanthi may refer to: In Sanskrit * Inner peace, a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress * Kshanti, one of the paramitas of B ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, also in 2002. He is also a fellow of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the Materials Research Society of India Medal, which he received in 2003. The

selected him as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2006. He was listed among the world's most cited materials scientists by Elsevier Scopus in 2016.

Biography

Legacy

Awards and honors

See also

References

Further reading