Abhijit Sen obtained his BSc from St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad, and his MS and PhD from the University of Tennessee. After a year of postdoctoral work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he returned to India and joined the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad as a faculty member in the Plasma Physics Group. He worked at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Visiting Scientist (1976-78) and carried out research on 'radio frequency heating of tokamaks'. He moved to the Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar (1986), where he is currently Raman Professor and Dean of the Institute.

Academic and Research Achievements: Sen's research interests relate to the areas of basic plasma physics and non-linear dynamical systems with applications to thermonuclear fusion, space plasmas and complex systems. His major research findings include a novel method for stabilization of ballooning instabilities in tokamaks using radio frequency waves, control of trapped particle instabilities with the help of modulated neutral beams and the critical effects of sheared flows in the mitigation of neoclassical tearing modes. He predicted and later helped in the experimental identification of a new transverse shear mode in strongly coupled dusty plasmas. He also discovered a novel phenomenon of time delay induced amplitude death in coupled oscillator systems that was subsequently proved experimentally stimulating a lot of research in the area. He also authored over 120 research papers in peer reviewed journals.

Other Contributions: Sen has played a key role in founding the Institute for Plasma Research and promoting research on 'plasma physics and fusion science'. He served as Chair of the IUPAP Commission on Plasma Physics (C16) and Vice President of the IUPAP Council (2002-05). He has been a Senior Associate at International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste and on the Editorial boards of several journals including Nuclear Fusion, Plasma Sources, Science and Technology, Pramana, and Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.

Awards and Honours: Professor Sen was a recipient of the INSA Young Scientist Medal (1976). He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, the National Academy of Sciences (India), the American Physical Society; and the Institute of Physics.