Amitava Raychaudhuri did his BSc (Hons) (Physics) from the Presidency College, Kolkata, and then MSc (1973) from Delhi University. He obtained PhD (1977) from the University of Maryland in particle physics under the supervision of OW Greenberg. After postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), he joined the University of Calcutta in 1980 as a Lecturer in Physics, where he became Reader and then the Sir Tarak Nath Palit Professor. During his tenure at the University of Calcutta, he was Scientific Associate (1983-84) at CERN, Senior Indo-US Fulbright Fellow (1988-89) at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Senior Marie Curie Fellow (1994) at the University of Cambridge. He was also Visiting Professor (1998) at the Oklahoma State University. Presently, he is Director of the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad (2005- ).

Academic and Research Achievements: Raychaudhuri worked in diverse areas within particle physics encompassing QCD, GUTs, classical solutions, left-right symmetric models, FCNC, supersymmetry, neutrino physics, extra dimensions, etc. He made pioneering contributions in CP-violation in supersymmetric models, the possibility of parity restoration at relatively low energies, neutrino masses and mixing in supersymmetric and other models, long baseline neutrino experiments, besides making a brief but important foray in the foundations of quantum mechanics. He also guided 11 PhD students.

Other Contributions: Raychaudhuri played an active role to introduce a paper on particle physics, and also on general theory of relativity and cosmology for the MSc curriculum at the University of Calcutta.

Awards and Honours: Dr Raychaudhuri was awarded the INSA Young Scientist Award (1982). He is also Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad and the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.