Soumitro Banerjee obtained his BE degree in Electrical Engineering from the Bengal Engineering College (Calcutta University) in 1981 and MTech degree in Energy Studies from IIT, Delhi in 1983. He worked on magnetic energy storage for his doctoral dissertation and earned the PhD degree from the IIT, Delhi in 1988. He has been in the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, since 1986.

Academic and Research Achievements: Dr Banerjee's research contributions concern nonlinear dynamics and bifurcation theory. He has mainly concentrated on 'hybrid dynamical systems' like switching electronic circuits and mechanical systems with impacts or stick-slip motion, which involve continuous-time evolution as well as discrete switching action between two or more different types of dynamical behaviour. He demonstrated that such systems undergo a special kind of dynamical transition, known as 'border-collision bifurcation.' He has been instrumental in developing the mathematical theory of border-collision bifurcations, which has been widely used in various application areas to understand as to why certain abrupt and drastic changes occur in the dynamical state of a system. He has also been in the forefront of the investigations on the nonlinear phenomena in power electronics. He has published three books entitled Nonlinear Phenomena in Power Electronics, Dynamics for Engineers and Wind Electrical Systems.

Other Contributions: Dr Banerjee served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems II (2003-05), and of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems (2006-07)I. He initiated the National Conference on Nonlinear Systems & Dynamics (NCNSD) in 2003, which has now become an annual event. He takes active part in popularizing science and propagation of scientific bent of mind. He is the General Secretary of the science organization Breakthrough Science Society. He is in the Editorial Board of the science magazine Breakthrough, and is the Editor of the popular Bengali science magazine Prakriti.

Awards and Honours: Dr Banerjee was awarded the SS Bhatnagar Prize (2003) and the Citation Laureate Award (2004). He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.