Dipankar Banerjee (born 15 February 1952) is an Indian physical metallurgist, materials engineer and a former chief controller of R&D at the

Defence Research and Development Organization The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, ...

(DRDO). Known for his studies on

titanium alloys Titanium alloys are alloys that contain a mixture of titanium and other chemical elements. Such alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light in weight, have extraordinary corrosion resistance a ...

, Banerjee is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies namely Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, established in 1930, is the oldest science academy in India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows *Suddhasatwa Basu * Sudha Bhattacharya * Ch ...

as well as the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada''), abbreviated as CSIR, was established by the Government of India in September 1942 as an autonomous body that has emerged as the l ...

, 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 for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1993. He received the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

from the Government of India in 2005.

Biography

Born on 15 February 1952, Dipankar Banerjee graduated in

metallurgical engineering Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

from the

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it is recognized as an Institute of National Importance and has be ...

in 1974. After gaining a master's degree, he pursued his doctoral studies at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to earn a PhD in 1979. His post-doctoral work was at the Aeronautical Research and Development Board of India of the

(DRDO) as a research fellow and after completing the work, he started his career at the

Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) is a research laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in Defence Research Complex, Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad. It is responsible for the development and manufa ...

(DMRL) of DRDO in 1979. He became the director of DMRL in 1996 and held the position until 2003 when he was appointed as the chief controller of research and development of DRDO, overseeing the aeronautical and materials programs of the organization. In 2010, he returned to his alma mater, the IISc, as a professor at the Department of Materials Engineering and heads the ''Processing, Structure and Properties of Materials Laboratory'' (PSPM) as its group leader. During this period, he had several stints on research assignments in the US which included those at the Carnegie Mellon University, the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

and the General Electric Research Laboratory. He is a former chair of the research council of the

National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science and Technology The National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST, formerly ''Regional Research Laboratory, Thiruvananthapuram, Trivandrum'') is a constituent laboratory of CSIR India, CSIR, India, engaged in research and development ac ...

and the incumbent chair of the researchcouncil of Central Glass and Ceramics Research Institute of CSIR and the Gas Turbine Materials (GTMAP) program of the Aeronautics Research and Development Board of DRDO. He is a former president and the incumbent member of the council of the

Indian Institute of Metals Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) was formed in Kolkata in 1946 under the leadership of Dr. Dara P. Antia, who was then Chief Metallurgist of Indian Aluminum Co. The IIM is over 60 years old premier professional Metallurgical Institute set up to ...

and sits in the governing board of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The memberships of the board of governors of

Mishra Dhatu Nigam Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (abbreviated as MIDHANI), is a specialized metals and metal alloys manufacturing facility in India, located in Hyderabad, Telangana. It is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), under the administrative control of Depa ...

and the strategic advisory committee of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America were some of his other past assignments.

Legacy

Banerjee, whose research has been focusing on the structure and properties of

titanium alloy Titanium alloys are alloys that contain a mixture of titanium and other chemical elements. Such alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light in weight, have extraordinary corrosion resistance a ...

s, is known to have made significant contributions in the field of the physical metallurgy of titanium aluminides and his studies are reported to have assisted in developing alloy systems for high-temperature applications such as those in

gas turbine engines A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...

. The group led by him employed advanced

electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

techniques to study the physical metallurgy of the alloys and was successful in discovering the Ti2AlNb phase which eventually helped other scientists in developing a new generation of alloys. During his days at DMRL, he contributed to initiating programs like the development of special naval steels for use in aircraft carriers and titanium alloys for aircraft engines. Later, at the research and development division of DRDO, he was instrumental in introducing programs in airborne electronic warfare, unmanned vehicle and airborne early warning systems. His studies have been documented in a number of articles;

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

and

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...

, online repositories of scientific articles, have listed 141 and 109 of them respectively.

Awards and honors

Banerjee received the Metallurgist of the Year Award of the

and the Scientist of the Year award of the Defence Research and Development Organization in 1987. The

awarded him the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, Applied science, applied or Fundamenta ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 1993. He received the Superconductivity Prize of the Materials Research Society of India in 2001, followed by the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 2003. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honor of the

in 2005 and three years later, he received the Technology Leadership Award of the DRDO in 2008. The Indian National Academy of Engineering selected him for the Professor Jai Krishna Memorial Award in 2011 and he was chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award of the DRDO in 2014. Banerjee, who has held the J. C. Bose National Fellowship of the

Science and Engineering Research Board Science and Engineering Research Board is a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, established by an Act of the Parliament of India in 2009 ( SERB ACT,2008). The Board is chaired by the Secretary to t ...

, was elected by the Indian Academy of Sciences as their fellow in 1992. The Indian National Science Academy followed suit in 1995 with an elected fellowship and the third of the major Indian science academies, the

elected him as a fellow in 2001. In between, he also received the elected fellowship of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 1999.

Selected bibliography

* * *

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Dipankar Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Engineering Science 1952 births Indian scientific authors Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences Indian metallurgists Scientists from West Bengal 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Living people Indian materials scientists Fellows of the Indian National Academy of Engineering Recipients of the Padma Shri in science & engineering IIT Madras alumni Indian Institute of Science alumni Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Fellows of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society