..................................................................................Others

Dr. Pradeep Mathur

 Winner of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award 2000. 

Science flows through the genes of the Mathur family. Prof Dr. Pradeep Mathur won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award, the highest national award in the field of science for his contribution to chemistry. His brother Dr Deepak Mathur, who also won the Bhatnagar award in the year 1991 for his contribution to the field of atomic collisions & nuclear reactions, presently works for Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

Dr Pradeep Mathur is a widely travelled scientist. He completed his schooling and undergraduate study in London, followed by a Ph.D degree from Keel University. He then worked towards his post doctoral research at Yale University in the U.S. After this, Dr. Mathur chose his motherland, India, as his work place and joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in the year 1984 as a lecturer in chemistry department. He has been there as a lecturer for 11 years , and as full professor for the last 5 years. He is also a fellow of the Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore.

Dr. Mathur's specialised field is Organometallic Chemistry. He has been working in this area for the last 16 years, and has been successful in developing new types of clusters by application of non-linear optics, catalysis and activation of organic compounds. Clusters are a class of organometallic compounds which have the potential to be used for various industrial purposes. However it has been a major problem for scientists to design and synthesise clusters of particular shapes and sizes.Dr Mathur has been successful in developing methods for obtaining clusters of required shapes, sizes, and properties. He has also shown that some of these clusters can be used for applications such as catalysis, and organic transformations. His most recent work has been to use x-ray defraction techniques for structure reactivity corelation studies.

Single crystal x-ray defraction methods are used for obtaining detailed structures of molecules. By looking at the structures, one can obtain information about possible reactivity and other potential applications of the new materials. Potential applications range from use in new materials present in petro-chemical industries, and new catalysts related to optics that could be used for night-vision devices. For example, it can be used in war, at the time of any operation conducted in the night, by which a particular location can be made visible and targeted correctly.

Handsome Dr. Mathur is a very popular teacher. He has received the Best Teacher Award from I.I.T Bombay.

Author: Mahagyany.

Photographer: Vinayak Prabhu