At the inauguration of Deepak and Neera Raj Center of Indian
Economic Studies at Columbia University by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on
October 5 held at Columbia University, Columbia
professor P. Somasundaran was honored with faculty award. Others present a the
meeting included Indian Ambassador the US Arun Kumar Singh and Indian Consul
General Dnyaneshwar Mulay.
The award was presented by the famous economist and Director
of the new center, Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati.
Ponisseril Somasundaran is LaVon Duddleson Krumb
Professor of Mineral Engineering, Director of the Langmuir
Center for Colloids & Interfaces,
and Founding Director of National Science Foundation Industry/University
Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Studies in Novel Surfactants at Columbia University. He is a former Chairman of
Columbia’s Henry Krumb School of Mines and a former Chair of Department of
Chemical Engineering, Material Science & Mineral Engineering. Before
joining Columbia,
he worked for the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation and Reynolds
Industries. Somasundaran received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California
at Berkeley.
Somasundaran’s research has covered a wide spectrum of
environmental, energy, and material problems, including enhanced oil recovery,
oil spill remediation, waste water treatment, bio implants, tissue engineering,
and nanotoxicity. His most recent work for Ebola decontamination involved the
use of bleach foam. His work has also focused on India’s many critical resources,
including the country’s only domestic source for phosphate fertilizer and iron
ore. Somasundaran has served as director of the Volunteers in Service to
Education in India,
which established scholarships, provided scientific equipment, and supplied course
curriculums.
Somasundaran is the author/editor of fifteen books and over
700 scientific publications and patents. He is the honorary editor-in-chief of
the international journal "Colloids and Surfaces" and has served on
many international, national and professional committees, including the
National Research Council and National Science Foundation Advisory Committees.
He was inducted in 1985 to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest
professional distinction conferred to an engineer at the time, and later, to
the Chinese, Indian, and Russian
National Academies.
Most recently, Somasundaran was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2010.
Somasundaran is the recipient of numerous awards and honors from around the
world, including the 2010 Padma Shri from the president of India and the 2015 Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize
for Technological Innovation from Columbia
University.
Photo: Prof. P Somasundaran (in the right) being presented
the Faculty Award by Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati
