Professor Dhananjai Pandey is an internationally renowned educator and researcher in the field of Materials Science and Technology. His professional career started in 1977 as a Faculty Member in BHU/ IIT (BHU) and he retired as Professor (HAG) in 2017 but continued as Institute Professor for another five years. He was the Coordinator (Head) of the School of Materials Science and Technology for about a decade and under his leadership, the School emerged as an Internationally reputed Centre of research and teaching in advanced functional materials with world class faculty and laboratories equipped with state of the art equipment for the synthesis, characterisation and measurement of various properties of a wide ranging materials from functional oxides and polymers to functional alloys, biopolymers, nanocrystalline powders of oxides, thin films etc. A new five-year Integrated dual degree program in Materials Science and Technology was also developed and successfully implemented during his tenure as Coordinator.
After the upgradation of the Institute of Technology of BHU as an autonomous Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Professor Pandey was given the responsibility of the first Director of this new IIT. During his brief stint as Director, he initiated the process of setting up a Central Instruments Facility equipped with modern facilities for R & D work in basic as well as engineering sciences, policies for the handling of external funding, consultancy and the purchase etc besides developing appropriate ordinances approved by the newly constituted Senate and BoG. Subsequently, the BoG Chairman of the IIT (BHU) requested him to continue in the administration as a Dean of Faculty Affairs. Under his guidance, policy documents for Salary fixation, Faculty Recruitment and Promotion of deserving existing faculty members as per the IIT norms were not only developed but also successfully implemented.
Professor Pandey is internationally recognized for his contributions in materials science and technology. A widely travelled scientist, he has delivered Invited talks/ Key note addresses / Plenary lectures at a very large number of International and National Conferences held within India and abroad. He has published over 200 research articles in journals of international repute, books and book-series with nearly 7500 citations (14 papers with over 100 citations) and an h-index of 47. He also holds several patents to his credit. He is a Fellow of all the three premier science academies of India (Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences of India) and a Fellow of the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials. He is a recipient of several awards/medals (INSA Young Scientist Medal, Materials Research Society of India Medal, its Annual Prize and Distinguished Lectureship award, Homi Bhabha Fellowship, DAE Raja Ramanna Award, Pt Jubilee Award of Indian Science Congress, J C Bose National Fellowship award etc).
Professor Pandey has served as Co-editor of the leading crystallography journals published by the International Union of Crystallography, Acta Crystallographica Section A and Journal of Applied Crystallography (first Indian), and Member of Editorial Boards of International journals (Phase Transitions, Materials Science Forum and Zeitscrift-fur-kristallographie) as well as Indian journals (Bulletin of Materials Science and Praman-a Physics Journal). He presently serves on the editorial advisory boards of Zeitscrift-fur-kristallographie and Bulletin of Materials Science, and as a Co-editor of Journal of Applied Crystallography (second 9-year term).
He has served on many important international bodies like Ewald Prize Committee (the highest award in crystallography) and Asia-Oceania Neutron Scattering Association (AONSA) Prize Committee, Commission of Aperiodic Crystals, Commission on Inorganic Materials and Minerals, Commission on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography (MaThCryst), Sub-Committee on Nomenclature for Phase Transitions of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). He also served as Chairman of the MaThCryst Commission of the IUCr, being the third Indian to be elected as Chairman of any one of the IUCr Commissions over the last seven decades. He is a founding Member of AONSA's EC and continues to be its Member from India at present.
Professor Pandey has been Vice President and President of the Indian Crystallographic Association and Vice President of the Materials Research Society of India and is currently President of the Neutron Scattering Society of India. Over the last three decades, he has served/ continues to serve as a Member of many important Committees of DST, CSIR, DRDO, UGC etc for research funding. He has also been Member of the Bhatnagar as well as Young Scientist prize Committees, Chairman of the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship Committee and Member of SRF/RA Committee of CSIR. He has been Member of the Sectional Committees of INSA and IASc for the election of FNA and FASc, and Member of Selection Committees for the appointment of Director of National Laboratories (DRDO and CSIR), Senior Scientist of CSIR, Faculty Members of IITs, NITs, Central, State and leading private Universities.