B Madhava Reddy received his BSc (Physics) in 1954 obtaining first rank from the Madras University; MSc (Applied Physics) in 1958 and DSc (Atmospheric Sciences) in 1963 both from the Andhra University. He did postdoctoral research at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre (1964-67), and worked in various capacities at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi (1967-95) from where he retired as Head of the Radio Science Division. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences of Japan, and also at the Kyoto and Nagoya universities. He also worked as CSIR Emeritus Scientist (1995-2000) and INSA (Honorary) Scientist (2000- ), both at NGRI, Hyderabad.

Academic and Research Achievements: Dr Reddy was the first to describe the global thermal structure of the topside ionosphere from satellite in situ measurements. He proved conclusively from a variety of measurements that the topside plasma densities increase remarkably during magnetic storms and his thermal expansion theory was subsequently confirmed by several workers. His pioneering efforts characterized the Indian Radio Environment to improve radio communications. He was invited in 1983 to be a Team Member in the NASA-Space Shuttle investigations which continued up to 1996 as SUNDIAL programme. He worked to establish specific couplings between various levels of geospace environment to improve solar terrestrial predictions. He also guided 10 students for PhD and published 150 papers in reputed journals.

Other Contributions: Dr Reddy was Chairman of the URSI Committee on Developing Countries (1990-96), and also Member of the international team for the Shuttle Imaging Radar of NASA. Presently, he is Chairman of the National Network of ST Radars in India. He is also the Chairman of the Programme advisory committee for atmospheric sciences and chairman of several National Committees.

Awards and Honours: Dr Reddy won the Vikram Sarabhai Award (1975) for outstanding contributions in the area of Planetary and Space Sciences; Decennial Award by Indian Geophysical Union (1997); and KR Ramanathan Medal in Atmospheric Sciences (1999). He was Vice President of the Indian Geophysical Union for several years and Chairman of the Governing Council of Indian Institute of Geomagnetism for ten years.