Bhubaneswar: Eminent Odia Physicist and Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Dr Ajit Kumar Mohanty has been appointed as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He will also be the Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy.
The Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet has issued a notification in this regard. Dr Mohanty will hold the position till the age of 66 years i.e., untill 10.10.2025 or until further orders.
Dr Ajit Kumar Mohanty is born in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj District in 1959 and completed his graduation in 1979 in Physics from MPC College, Baripada. He did his post-graduation in 1981 from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack.
In 1983, Mohanty joined the Nuclear Physics Division of BARC after graduating from the 26th Batch of BARC Training School. He obtained his doctorate from Mumbai University.
Mohanty worked in several areas of nuclear physics covering collision energy from the sub-Coulomb barrier to the relativistic regime using the Pelletron accelerator at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), PHENIX, and CMS experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA and CERN, Geneva.
He held several honorary positions at various organisations. He served the Indian Physics Association (IPA) as General Secretary and later as its President. He had been the spokesperson for India-CMS collaboration, Director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, and Director, Physics Group, BARC. He has twice been the CERN Scientific Associate, first during 2002-2004 and again during 2010-2011.
Mohanty is a recipient of the Young Physicist Award from the Indian Physical Society in 1988, the Indian National Science Academy Young Scientist Award in 1991 and the Homi Bhabha Science and Technology Award of the Department of Atomic Energy in 2001. Recently, he was conferred with Honorary Doctrine of Literature (D.Litt.) Honoris Causa by the Utkal University, Bhubaneswar.
