Bilwagopal Ghosh obtained his BSc from Calcutta University and MSc from North Bengal University, after which he joined IIT, Kharagpur as a research Fellow. He obtained his PhD degree (1970) from IIT, Kharagpur under the supervision of SK Dutta Roy. He then joined S Methfessel's group at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany as a post-doctoral Fellow, and returned to India in 1974 to join the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata. He was INSA Senior Scientist during 2000-05.

Academic and Research Achievements: At SINP, Ghosh initiated work in the area of structural phase transitions. Three compounds in the class ABF6.6H2O/6D2O (where A = Co, Mn, Zn; B = Si, Ti), which show structural phase transition, have been catalogued by his group. From the frequency shift and line width change of thermally sensitive vibrational bands near phase transition, they revealed the mechanism of phase transition in these systems. His group also studied phase diagram of high-Tc systems: Bi-2212, Bi-2223 and, for the first time, that of Tl-2212 system by determining the carrier concentration from Hall measurements. In LaMnO3 system they reported the change in the electronic state at the Jahn-Teller transition temperature and the phenomenon of orbital melting from the observation of volume collapse at that temperature. Ghosh has published over 70 research papers and review articles. He has mentored several PhD students.

Other Contributions: Ghosh has set up sample preparation (including single crystal) and characterization laboratories and fabricated different experimental facilities to study transport and thermal properties over a wide range of temperature and magnetic field. He was the President of Indian Physical Society and is on the Editorial Board of Indian Journal of Physics.