A Summary of Biography
Professor M. Lakshmanan is one of the world leaders in the frontier field of 'Nonlinear Dynamics', which deals with the behaviour of physical systems under the action of the nonlinear/strong forces. He is also considered to be a father figure in this area in the country. Particularly, very few people have contributed to both the topics of Soliton and Chaos, which are the two major constituents of Nonlinear Dynamics, on equal footing at the highest level as Prof. Lakshmanan has done. His many faceted research works have enriched the subject considerably and contributed to the advancement of the general theory of solitons, integrable systems, magnetic and optical solitons, classical chaos including bifurcations, controlling, synchronization and secure communications as well as quantum chaos and spatiotemporal patterns.
Further, Dr. Lakshmanan has single handedly built an active research group of international standard in Nonlinear Dynamics and established a Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli and thereby motivated many young people to pursue research in this area.
Professor Lakshmanan has written over 300 research articles in internationally reputed scientific journals and published 8 books through reputed publishers in the area of Nonlinear Dynamics/Theoretical Physics. He has about 38 years of teaching and research experience and has guided 24 students for their Ph. D degrees. He is currently supervising 8 Ph. D. students. He has received some of the highest awards in the country, including S. S. Bhatnagar Prize in Physical Sciences (1989), U. G. C. Hari Om Trust Meghnad Saha Award in Theoretical Sciences (1990), Tamilnadu Scientist Award (1994), Biren Roy Memorial Lecture Award of Indian National Science Academy (1998), 76th Indian Science Congress Madurai Kamaraj University Distinguished Scientist Award (2004), Goyal Prize in Physics (2005) and Professor V. V. Narlikar Memorial Lecture Award INSA (2006). He has been a recipient of several prestigious international fellowships, including Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship (Germany, 19976-77,1982), Eindhoven University Postdoctoral Fellowship (Holland, 1978). Swedish Guest Research Fellowship (1981,2000), and Japan Society of Promotion of Science Fellowship (1984-85,2002,2006) and ICTP Senior Associateship (2002-08). He is also a member of the Editorial Boards of several prestigious Theoretical Physics Journals, including the Proceedings of Royal Society of London A. Professor Lakshmanan has been recently honoured with a D.Sc (honoris causa) by the University of Burdwan for his deep contributions to Nonlinear Dynamics.
Professor Lakshmanan is a Fellow of all the three Academies of Science of India and is an elected Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. He has been recently elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of the Developing Countries (FTWAS 2009). He has held visiting positions in many prestigious institutions all around the world including Bulgaria,Canada, China, France, Finland, Germany, Greece,Holland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Soviet Union, Ukraine, U. K and U. S. A.
Born on 25 March 1946 in an agriculture family in a hamlet in Coimbatore district of Tamilnadu, he pursued his schooling at a Government School in a neighbouring village Negamam. He did his B. Sc and M. Sc Physics courses at N. G. M. College, Pollachi and Madras Christian College, respectively. His Ph. D (1974) work was carried out at the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Madras under the supervision of Professor P. M. Mathews, leading him to a research career in Nonlinear Dynamics. After a few years of Post-doctoral research in Germany and Holland, he joined as a Reader in Physics at the Autonomous Post graduate Centre of University of Madras at Tiruchirapalli in 1978 (which became Bharathidasan University in 1982). He was promoted as Professor of Physics in 1984 and then as the Head of the Department (1994-2006) of Physics and Head of the Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics (1992-2006), where he is now working as Professor of Eminence and DST Ramanna Fellow.