Lalit Mohan Patnaik obtained his BSc (Electrical Engineering) from Sambalpur University (1969); ME (Electrical Engineering) (1971), PhD (1978) in the area of real-time systems and DSc (1989) in the area computer systems and architectures, all from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He joined the IISc as a Senior Research Assistant (1971) and rose to the level of a Professor (1986) in the Department of Computer Science and Automation. Subsequently, he assumed charge as Vice-Chancellor, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), Pune (2008).

Academic and Research Achievements: Working in the areas of high performance computing, soft computing, computer-aided design of VLSI circuits, mobile computing, computational neuroscience, medical imaging, information retrieval and security including web design and mining, Patnaik made pioneering contributions for (i) designing an intelligent configuration of hierarchical network of extended hypercube (ii) developing an exact model for analyzing the working of Genetic Algorithms, a distributed channel access protocol that occupies the channel reservation and the iterative/global transmission power control schemes in wireless adhoc networks (iii) test-set selection technique based on the frequency domain testing of analog circuits which is best suited for use of the existing building blocks in systems-on-chip (iv) real-time multivariable computer control through direct digital and supervisory control algorithms for an ammonia reactor in fertilizer, steel, and nuclear industries and (v) developing techniques to classify MRI images for neurological disorders. He has published over 1100 papers in international journals and conference proceedings, supervised 30  doctoral and over 160 masters students. He was co-editor/co-author of 25 books in VLSI system design and parallel computing;

Other Contributions: Professor Patnaik served as the General Chair/Program Chair for over 150 international conferences in the area of Computer Science and Engineering. He was Member of the INSA Council (2004-06). As Vice-Chancellor of the DIAT, he provided leadership to develop excellent academic programmes in the broad area of defence science and technology.

Awards and Honours: Patnaik was conferred the Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1989), Indian Science Congress Platinum Jubilee Lecture Award (1994), Samanta Chandrasekhar Award (1994), IEEE Computer Society's Technical Achievement Award (1999), Fourth Sir CV Raman Memorial Lecture Award (2000), Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru National Award for Engineering and Technology (1999), Om Prakash Bhasin Award (2001), FICCI Award (2001-02), Goyal Prize for Applied Science (2005) and Indian Science Congress Association's Srinivasa Ramanujan Birth Centenary Award (2007-08). He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad, Indian National Academy of Engineering, and IEEE. He was also President of the Advanced Computing and Communications Society, and Computational Intelligence Society of India.