Suryanarayana Sastry Ramasesha did his BSc (Hons) (1968) from Bangalore University, and Masters (Chemistry) (1970) and PhD (1977) degrees from IIT Kanpur. He was Postdoctoral Fellow in Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, Oxford University, Louisiana State University, and Princeton University. Thereafter, he worked as Faculty Member (1984- ), Professor, Chairman, Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit (1992-97), and Amrut Modi Chair professor of Chemical Sciences (2000-003), and Dean, faculty of science (2014-15) all at IISc. He has been Visiting Professor at Princeton University, NJ, University of Arizona, Tucson, Bordeaux University, France, Ecole Normale Superieure, Cachan, France and University of Mons-Hainaut, Belgium.

Academic and Research Achievements: Ramasesha has been actively engaged in electronic structure theory of molecular materials. He has developed numerical many-body techniques for studying large correlated systems. He introduced a bit-representation scheme in the diagrammatic valence bond (VB) technique. He developed a fully symmetrized spin adapted technique for exact diagonalization studies using a dual basis (VB functions and Slater determinants) approach. He introduced symmetrized density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method for studying low-lying excitations in conjugated molecular systems and also developed a correction vector approach within the DMRG scheme for studying dynamic properties. Using these techniques, he successfully explained why some conjugated organic molecules are fluorescent while others are not. He also obtained model exact correlated properties such as energies of low-lying eigenstates, linear and nonlinear optic coefficients for organic molecules which have served as benchmarks in the field. He was involved in solving the long-standing puzzle of the observation of higher than theoretical limit of the branching ratio of singlets to triplets in electron-hole recombination in organic light emitting diodes. He has developed models and methods for studying molecular magnetic materials. He has guided 19 PhD students and published over 220 papers.

Other Contributions: Professor Ramasesha served as Convener of the National Centre for Science Information in IISc, was the first Head of the Computer Lab in Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore.

Awards and Honours: Ramasesha was National Science Talent Search Scholar and also received the General Proficiency Award by IIT Kanpur. He was conferred Young Scientists' Medal by INSA, BM Birla Science Prize for Chemistry, SS Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences, Silver Medal by Chemical Research Society of India, Alumin Award for Excellence in Research by IISc and JC Bose National Fellowship. He was also elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. and Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences for Developing Countries.