Sarvadaman Chowla obtained his MSc degree (1928) and PhD from the Panjab University, Lahore, now in Pakistan. His specialization was in pure mathematics and number theory. He was Research Professor, Department of Mathematics, McAllister Building, Pennsylvania State University, USA; Faculty, St Stephens College, New Delhi; Banaras Hindu University; Andhra University; Government College, Lahore, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton (USA); University of Kansas (USA); University of Colorado (USA); and Pennsylvania State University (USA).

Academic and Research Achievements: When still 18, Chowla came up with a new proof of the well-known theorem of von Staudt-Clausen on the denominators of Bernoulli numbers. Inspired by Ramanujan, Chowla published some interesting results on the periods of elliptic functions. In collaboration with Selberg, Chowla obtained some interesting results on Epstein's zeta functions and eventually produced what is now known as Chowla-Selberg formula. Perhaps Chowla's crowning achievement is the Bruck-Chowla-Ryster theorem, i.e. If v is even, then k-h is a square; if v is odd, the diophantine equation : x2 = (k–h) y 2 + (C–1)(v-1)/2 h(z2) has a nontrivial solution. Chowla authored Lecture Notes in Mathematics (Springer-Verlag, 1977). Awards and Honours: Chowla received Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal of INSA (1982); The Journal of Number Theory brought out a special issue on Chowla's 70th birthday, containing a resume of his work.