Professor G.D. Yadav, the President of the Indian Chemical Society, is one of the topmost, highly prolific and accomplished engineering-scientists in India. He is internationally recognized by many prestigious and rare awards as an academician, researcher and innovator, including his seminal contributions to education, research and innovation in Green Chemistry and Engineering, Catalysis, Chemical Engineering, Energy Engineering, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, and Development of Clean and Green Technologies. For 10.5 years, he served as the Founding Vice Chancellor and R.T. Mody Distinguished Professor, and Tata Chemicals Darbari Seth Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, which is a Deemed-to-be-University having Elite Status and Centre of Excellence given by State Assembly on par with IITs/IISc/IISERs. He currently holds the titles of Emeritus Professor of Eminence and J.C. Bose National Fellow in ICT. He serves as the Adjunct Professor at University of Saskatchewan, Canada, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and Conjoint Professor, University of New Castle, Australia. He was conferred Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour, by the President of India in 2016 for his outstanding contributions to Science and Engineering. He has been recipient of two honorary doctorates: D. Sc. (Hon. Causa, DYPU) and D. Eng. (Hon. Causa, NIT Agartala). As the Vice Chancellor he created many records.
In the recent November 2020 survey of Stanford University, where Indian scientists in top 2% of those in the World are honoured, Professor Yadav is number one in India in Physical Chemistry which is within 0.2% of the world scientists and is ranked at 66, which is remarkable. He is a chemical engineer, but his research is in the field of catalysis science and engineering which is counted as part of physical chemistry.
His research productivity is phenomenal with supervision of 101 Doctoral and 122 Masters Theses; which is the first record in ICT and for any Engineering Professor in India. Besides, he has supervised 37 post-doctoral fellows, several summer fellows and research staff. He has published 463 original research papers, 118 national and PCT patent applications (78 granted); 3 books; h-index of 60, i10 index of 281; 13,300+ citations in journals, patents, books and monographs. He is still actively involved in guiding doctoral students, patenting, publishing, consulting, and transferring technologies to industry.
Under his dynamic leadership, ICT made phenomenal progress having been declared as Category I institute, having started 23 new academic programmes, 5 new Departments and several Centres of Excellence, and establishment of two off-campuses in Bhubaneswar with total support of IOCL and Marathwada with total support of Govt. of Maharashtra, and collected phenomenal funds. The ICT is listed in top 100 institutes in the Developing World by Times Higher Education Ranking in 2019. The Atal Innovation Ranking of MHRD has placed ICT as number 1 among Govt. funded Universities. He has personally won over 125 national and international honours, awards, fellowships, editorships, and several Life Time Achievement Awards by prestigious industrial organizations. He is an elected Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Academy of Engineering as well as The World Academy of Sciences, Trieste (TWAS). He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, Institution of Chemical Engineers, UK, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, Indian Chemical Society, and Indian Society for Technical Education, among others. He is currently both the President of the Indian Chemical Society and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the ICS being published by Elsevier, which is unique distinction showing his versatility.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) published a Festschrift (special issue) of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research (2014) in his honour with 65 original research papers from scientists from all over the world. He is the Founder President ACS India International Chapter. He is on editorial boards of prestigious journals like: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Green Chemistry, Applied Catalysis A: Gen, Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chem., Catalysis Communications, International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, Current Catalysis, etc. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Catalysis in Green Chemistry & Engineering (2017, Begell House, USA).
He has been a member or chaired several national and international committees of MHRD, DST, DBT, UGC, AICTE, CSIR, the PSA’s on Green Chemistry, the Planning Commission’s Pan India S&T Committee, and the Government of Maharashtra’s Rajiv Gandhi S&T Commission Peers Group. He was Chairman, Research Council, CSIR-CSMCRI, member of RC of IICT Hyderabad and NIIST Trivandrum. He has served as a Chairman/member of Selection Committees of directors of many CSIR labs. He serves as Independent Director, on four renowned public limited companies: Aarti Industries Ltd, Godrej Industries Ltd, Meghmani Organics Ltd, and Bhageria Chemicals Ltd; and one private limited companies, Clean Science and Technology Pvt Ltd.
He is also a member of Apex Council of Indian Oil R&D; Expert Advisory Committee, ONGC Energy Centre (OEC); Glexcon India Advisory Board on Process Safety and the Governing Council DBT-IndianOil Energy Centre, and member of the DBT-Pan IIT Centre for Bioenergy. He is Chairman of DST’s National Expert Advisory Committee on Innovation, Incubation and Technology Enterprise, member of Advisory and Screening Committee of the Common Research and Technology Development Hubs of DSIR, Chairman, PAC of International Programmes in Chemical Sciences and Engineering, DST and Chairman, Expert Committee, Waste Management Technology, DST. He is a member of the Maharashtra Govt’s Expert Committee on NEP 2020.
He had the honour of addressing 3 Convocations of renowned universities. He is fond of literature, etymology, and Sanskrit. The ICT’s University song is written by him. There are 53 video clips including documentaries on his life on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLclyJH91-TwvTScCVrcih3nrrPGgf8U8R