Suresh Chand Jain obtained his PhD degree (1955) from Delhi University, specializing in solid state physics. He was Faculty Member, Physics Department, University of Leeds, UK (1955-58), Visiting Professor, University of Illinois; Head, Solid State Physics Division, National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi (1966-69) and Director, Solid State Physics Laboratory and Defence Research and Development Organization (1969-75). He was a Visiting Professional Fellow at Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell and Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London (1975-77).

Academic and Research Achievements: Jain developed, under the supervision of KS Krishnan, a new method for measuring thermal conductivity of solids at high temperatures, which has become standard as the Jain-Krishnan method. His work on point defects and their aggregation in non-metallic crystals opened up new areas of research. He did extensive work on the behaviour of p-n junction devices and integrated circuits.

Other Contributions: Jain was a Member, Solid State Physics Commission of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1966-72). He edited two books entitled Recent advances in Semiconductors (Hindustan Pub Corp, 1971) and Non-metallic Crystals (Gordon & Breach, 1970). He served on the Editorial Boards of Crystal Lattice Defects, Radiation Effects and Journal of Non-Metals. He was a Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA.

Awards and Honours: Jain was a recipient of SS Bhatnagar Prize (1966). He was a Fellow of Institution of Electronics and Telecommuncion Engineers (India); Institute of Physics (London); and American Physical Society.