Atul Chokshi obtained his BTech (1980) in Metallurgy from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras and his MS (1981) and PhD (1984) in Materials Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He was a post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California (1984-86) and at the University of California, Davis (1986-88), before taking up a faculty position at the University of California, San Diego. In 1994, he returned to India as an Associate Professor in the Department of Metallurgy (now Materials Engineering) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

Academic and Research Achievements: Professor Chokshi's graduate research was on mechanical characterization and cavitation failure in super plastic metallic alloys. As a post-doctoral Fellow, he worked on creep in alumina and was involved in the first report of creep whisker-reinforced alumina composites. At UC, Davis, he was involved in examining cavity nucleation during super plastic flow and limiting cavitation failure with superimposition of hydrostatic pressure. He developed a laboratory with creep and tensile testing for examining superplasticity in ceramics as a faculty at the University of California, San Diego. Dr Chokshi was also involved in the first report on strengthening in nanometals. He has published about 135 research papers.

Other Contributions: At IISc, Professor Chokshi set up excellent experimental facilities for studying creep and superplasticity in metallic alloys and ceramics, together with appropriate processing facilities such as sinter-forging for ceramics and electrodeposition for nanocrystalline metals, and has a very active research group in these areas.

Awards and Honours: Professor Atul Chokshi's research accomplishments have been recognized with several awards that include: Swarnajayanti Presidential Young Scientist Award from the Government of India (1998), Materials Research Society of India Medal (2000), Metallurgist of the Year Award by Indian Institute of Metals (2001), SS Bhatnagar Award (2003), JD Birla Award from the Indian Institute of Metals (2006) and Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT-M, Chennai (2008). Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad (2001), Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (2004), Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (2005).