Murali Sastry (born 1959) is an Indian material chemist, nanomaterial scientist and the chief executive officer of

IITB-Monash Research Academy The IITB-Monash Research Academy is a graduate research school located in Mumbai, India. It opened in 2008 as a joint venture between the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Monash University. Students of the Academy study for a dual PhD fr ...

. He is a former chief scientist and

Tata Chemicals Tata Chemicals Limited is an Indian global company with interests in chemicals, crop protection and specialty chemistry products headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company is one of the largest chemical companies in India with operations in In ...

and a former senior scientist at

National Chemical Laboratory The National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) is an Indian government laboratory based in Pune, in western India. Popularly known as NCL, a constituent member of the CSIR India, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India, it was estab ...

. He is known for his studies on surfaces, 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 Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 24 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it began with 65 founding fellows. The first general meet ...

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 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 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 a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is 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 India ...

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

and 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 an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

(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

as a Senior Scientist. In 2005 he shifted to

as 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

retired in 2015, he was selected to the post and he holds the post till date. He has served as an INAE and C. V. Seshadri chair professor at

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...

, DAE professor at Central University, Hyderabad, and as a visiting scientist at

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. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

(1998–99) and CNRS,

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 material 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 ap ...

and

nano materials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, 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-based approach to nan ...

, as well as the commercial applications of the technologies he has developed. As the chief scientific officer of

, 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, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

. It was during his tenure as the CEO of

, 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 researches by way of chapters contributed to books authored by others and over 360 peer-reviewed articles; He holds many US and Indian patents; Justia Patents have listed 24 of them. He has also been associated with many government and semi-government 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. It ...

, 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 A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, professio ...

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 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, 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