Echur Varadadesikan Sampathkumaran did his BSc from University of Madras and MSc from Annamalai University. Then, he joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, where he worked for his PhD on valence fluctuations in rare-earth compounds under the supervision of R Vijayaraghavan and obtained PhD from Bombay University (1982). Continuing as Faculty Member at TIFR, he was Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellow with G Kaindl at the Free University of Berlin, where he focused on the then hot issues of valence fluctuations, and has been Visiting Professor at Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, and at many other institutions. Subsequently, he has been Honorary Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore.

Academic and Research Achievements: Specializing in solid state properties of intermetallics and oxides, Sampathkumaran identified novel fluctuating-valent rare-earth systems. He discovered many Kondo lattices, Kondo insulators and metallic giant magnetoresistance systems with interesting characteristics. He also reported unusual and theoretically challenging transport and thermal anomalies, which were previously unrecognized in the field of magnetism, for the so-called 'normal' rare-earth systems. His latest findings involve: fascinating geometrical frustration effects and spin-chain effects in a new family of oxides; multiferroicity; discovery of ferromagnetism in the nanoform of exchange-enhanced bulk Pauli paramagnets; and investigation of Kondo lattices in nanoforms. He has published about 360 papers.

Other Contributions: Sampathkumaran served as Member of International Organizing committees of some prestigious international conferences. He was on the Editorial boards of Pramana, Solid State Communications, Scientific Reports (NPG), J. Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, and Open Condensed Matter Physics Journal (Bentham Science Publishers).

Awards and Honours: Professor Sampathkumaran received the INSA Medal for Young Scientists (1986), Associateship of Indian Academy of Sciences (1987-90), Materials Research Society of India Award (1996), SS Bhatnagar Prize (1999), and JC Bose National Fellowship (2008). He was Elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1998), National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad (1999), and the Third World Academy Sciences.