Sundaram Thangavelu obtained the BSc and MSc degrees in Mathematics from Madras University. In 1980, he joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Center for Applications of Mathematics at Bangalore under the Indian Institute of Science (IISc)-TIFR joint programme. In 1983, he went to Princeton University to work with Elias Stein and obtained MA and PhD (1987). He returned to India and worked at TIFR until 1993 when he moved to Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Bangalore. In 2005, he shifted to IISc and continues there as Professor, Department of Mathematics. He has taught at Cornell University (1991-92), University of New Mexico (1996-97) and University of Oregon (2003-04).

Academic and Research Achievements: Thangavelu made significant contributions to the field of harmonic analysis on Euclidean spaces, Heisenberg groups and symmetric spaces, and also authored three monographs in these areas. Some of his pioneering contributions involve Bochner-Riesz means, Riesz transforms and multipliers for Hermite and special Hermite expansions, Paley-Wiener theorems for Heisenberg groups and symmetric spaces, Hardy's theorem for semisimple and Heisenberg groups, spherical means, mean-periodic functions and maximal ergodic theorems on Heisenberg groups, Segal Bargmann transform on Heisenberg-groups, and holomorphic Sobolev spaces on compact symmetric spaces. He has more than 70 papers to his credit.

Awards and Honours: Professor Thangavelu was awarded the BM Birla Science Prize in Mathematics (1996), SS Bhatnagar Award (2002), and JC Bose National Fellowship (2008). He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1997).