V A Raghunathan obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from the Bangalore University. He was awarded PhD in Physics from the University of Mysore. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre de Paul Pascal–CNRS, Bordeaux, France. He joined the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, as a faculty member in 1995. He superannuated in 2020 and is currently an INSA Senior Scientist. Raghunathan’s work on electrohydrodynamic instabilities in nematic liquid crystals established the important role of flexoelectricity in this phenomenon. He was involved in calculating the elastic interaction between colloidal particles immersed in a nematic medium, and in elucidating the structure and phase behavior of self-assembled lipid membranes and polyelectrolyte-amphiphile complexes. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (2004).