Ravindra B Bapat obtained his BSc from the University of Mumbai, MStat from the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi and PhD (1981) from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the supervision of TES Raghavan. After spending a year in Northern Illinois University, DeKalb and two years at the Department of Statistics, University of Mumbai, Bapat joined the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi (1983), where he holds the position of Head, Delhi Centre at the moment. He held visiting positions at the University of Connecticut and Oakland University.

Academic and Research Achievements: The main areas of research interest of Professor Bapat are non-negative matrices, matrix inequalities, matrices in graph theory and generalized inverses. He has published more than 100 research papers in reputed national and international journals, written books on Linear Algebra (Hindustan Book Agency: Springer, Cambridge University Press) and a book on Mathematics in Marathi, which won the state government award for best literature in science (2004). He has guided two PhD students.

Other Contributions: Bapat has been on the Editorial Boards of Linear and Multilinear Algebra, Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra, Journal of Mathematical Sciences and Kerala Mathematical Association Bulletin. He has been actively involved with the Mathematics Olympiad Programme in India.

Awards and Honours: Professor Bapat is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. He was President of the Indian Mathematical Society (2007-08).  He was awrded the JC Bose Fellowship in 2009.