BITS Pilani Dubai welcomes new director

Prof. Souri Banerjee has been named by BITS Pilani as the new director of their campus in Dubai. He was appointed director last month and will hold this position for the ensuing five years. Prof. Srinivasan Madapusi, who has been the director of the Dubai campus since July 2021, was replaced by him.

In 2004 Professor Banerjee started working at the Pilani campus of BITS Pilani. At the Hyderabad campus, he was appointed the first Department Head of Physics in 2008. Serving as the Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs in 2013 and supervising all faculty affairs at all BITS Pilani sites, he worked for the institute for five years prior to being named Dean of Faculty Affairs in 2018.

He was a visiting professor at the University of Electro-Communications and held many postdoctoral appointments at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan. At HITACHI, Tokyo's Central Research Laboratory, he also worked as a research scientist.

"We are pleased to have Prof. Souri Banerjee on board and wish him all success in his new assignment," stated V Ramgopal Rao, Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani. His experience and leadership will undoubtedly be crucial in advancing our research projects and academic offerings.

In 1997, the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science in Kolkata awarded Professor Souri Banerjee a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics. In addition to working briefly at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, after receiving his PhD, he was named a JSPS Foreign Research Fellow in 2012 and 2018, two distinguished awards given for his contributions to the field of device physics.