G. D. Yadav

Ganapati Dadasaheb Yadav (born 1952) is an Indian chemical engineer, inventor and academic, known for his researches on nanomaterials, gas absorption with chemical reaction and phase transfer catalysis. He is the vice chancellor of the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai where he also serves as the R. T. Mody Distinguished Professor. He holds a number of patents and is an elected fellow of such science academies as Institution of Chemical Engineers, The World Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2016, for his contributions to science and engineering.

Institute of Chemical Technology

Ganapati Yadav was born on 14 September 1952 at Arjunwada, a small village in Radhanagari tehsil in Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra to Dadasaheb Krishnaji–Rukmini couple and did his early education at the local school in his village till class VII and later at Kolhapur till class XI. Joining the University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT) of Bombay University in 1970, he graduated in chemical engineering in 1974 and started his career at the institution as a faculty member. Simultaneously, he continued his doctoral studies under the supervision of renowned chemical engineer, Man Mohan Sharma, to secure his PhD in 1980. Later, he served at Loughborough University of Technology, UK as a Leverhulme fellow (1980–81) and the University of Waterloo, Ontario as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council fellow (1982–86). Returning to UDCT, he served in various capacities such as that of a Darbari Seth Professor of Inorganic Chemical Technology (1996–2009), Head of the department od chemical engineering (2006–09), Director and R. T. Mody Distinguished Professor of Chemical Technology (since 2009) and is the sitting vice chancellor of the institution which has since been renamed as Institute of Chemical Technology and is a deemed university since 2008.

Yadav is married to Vasanti Veeraraghavan Iyer and the couple has two sons, Vikramaditya and Gautam. The family lives in Mumbai.

Yadav is known to have done pioneering research on catalysis, with special focus on nanomaterials, nanocatalysis, energy engineering and biotechnology. He worked on substances like sulfated zirconia, heteropoly acids, clays and ion-exchange resins to develop reportedly improved techniques in oil recovery, phase transfer and heterogenous catalysis and invented new 2-D and 3-D models for flow visualization. He holds several Indian and US patents, reported to be 75 of them, for his inventions and innovations. His researches have been documented by way of 3 books and over 350 research papers. His articles are reported to have an H-index of 44 and i10-Index of 164 and one of his articles on sulfated zirconia has 690 citations, making it a citation classic. He has mentored 80 doctoral and 88 masters students and delivered over 500 orations and keynote addresses.

Yadav served as the president of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) in 2001 and it was during his term as the president, IIChE instituted 51 awards and endowments. As the director and vice chancellor of the Institute of Chemical Technology, he is reported to have created many faculty endowments and developed the infrastructure; G. D. Yadav Laboratory is one such centre of excellence in chemical research. He headed the Centre for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology and Centre for Green Technology of Mumbai University as the chief coordinator. He is the president of the Catalysis Society of India and the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences. He was associated with the Indo-Canadian multi-disciplinary partnership, IC-IMPACTS, a partnership between 7 Indian institutes and 3 Canadian universities (University of British Columbia, University of Alberta and University of Toronto), where served as the coordinator for the Institute of Chemical Technology in 2013. When the India International Chemical Sciences Chapter of the American Chemical Society was officially established in 2015, he served as the founder chair of the organization and chaired APCAT-7, the 7th Asia Pacific Congress on Catalysis Societies in Mumbai in November 2015. He is associated with a number of scientific journals as a member of their editorial boards; Applied Catalysis A, Journal of Molecular Catalysis A, Catalysis Communications, International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, RSC Green Chemistry and Current Catalysis are some of them. He is a visiting Professor at Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, and has served as Distinguished Asian Visiting Scholar at Purdue University (2007), Johansen Crosby Visiting Professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State University, (2001–02), Park Reilly Lecturer at University of Waterloo, (2011), and John van Geuns Lecturer at Van’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2012).

Yadav received the Best Engineering College Teacher Award of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) in 1994 and VASVIK Industrial Research Award in 1995. He received the IIEE Award for development of eco-friendly technologies in 1997, K. G. Naik Gold Medal of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 2002, and Anna University National Award for the most outstanding academic in 2005 before receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the UDCT (2006). He received three awards in 2007, Prof. S. K. Bhattacharya Eminent Scientist Award of Catalysis Society of India, Chemtech Foundation Award and the Best Teacher Award of the Government of Maharashtra, followed by two more awards in 2009, Eminent Engineer Award of Institution of Engineers (India) and Hercules Padma Vibhuhan Professor C. N. R. Rao Medal and Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award. In 2011, he received C. V. Raman Award and Green Chemistry Award of the Industrial Green Chemistry World followed by Goyal Prize of Kurukshetra University, Best Professor Award for Producing Maximum Peer Reviewed Paper, and the Best Researcher Award of PNG College of Engineering in 2012. The Indian Chemical Council awarded him the D. M. Trivedi Life Time Achievement Award in 2013 and he received the 15th NES Jagadguru Sankaracharya National Eminent Scientist Award in 2015. Besides, he has received seven awards from the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers viz. Hindustan Lever Biennial Award for the Most Outstanding Chemical Engineer of the Year (1994), Herdillia Award for Excellence in Basic Research in Chemical Engineering (1999), DOST Professor S.K. Sharma Medal and Chemcon Distinguished Award (2005), K. Anji Reddy Innovator of the Year Award (2006), RPG Life Sciences Padma Vibhushan Professor M. M. Sharma Medal and Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award (2010), Dr. B. P. Godrej Life Time Achievement Award (2013) and Asian Paints Padma Vibhushan Dr. R. A. Mashelkar Medal and CDS Award (2015).

Yadav has delivered several award orations; Cross Canada Lecture Tour of the Canadian Catalysis Society and Canadian Catalysis Foundation (2012–13), Dhirubhai Ambani Oration of IIChE-Reliance Industries (2014) and Dr. H. L. Roy Memorial Lecture (2008) of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers are some of the notable ones. The National Academy of Sciences, India and the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences elected him as their fellow in 2003 and the Indian National Science Academy and Institution of Chemical Engineers followed suit in 2007. He is also an elected fellow (2010) of The World Academy of Sciences. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the official journal of the American Chemical Society, published a Festschrift editorial on him in its December 2014 issue. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honor of the Padma Shri in 2016.