Swaminathan Sivaram

Dr. Swaminathan Sivaram is a polymer chemist by profession and a mentor as well as a science administrator of distinction. He is a former Director of the CSIR - National Chemical Laboratory, Pune (2002-10), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Fellow of CSIR and J. C. Bose Fellow of the Department of Science and technology. Currently, he is an Honorary Professor and INSA Senior Scientist of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune.

Dr. Sivaram is a highly decorated scientist with numerous awards and honours to his credit. He was conferred Padma Shri by the President of India in 2006. He is a recipient of the Gold Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India for his lifetime achievements in chemistry (2019) and the International Award for distinguished contributions to polymer science, awarded by the Society of Polymer Science, Japan (2017). Dr. Sivaram earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Madras Christian College (1965) and is a distinguished alumnus of IIT-Kanpur (M.Sc., 1967). He earned a PhD in Chemistry and DSc (h.c) from Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Indiana, USA. He is an elected Fellow of all the learned academies of science and engineering in India as well as The World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, Italy.  He is a technical consultant to several reputed Indian companies and serves on the Board of Directors of many leading Indian companies dealing with chemicals and materials. He was a founder Chairman and director of Venture Centre, A Section 8 company, Pune one of the first science-driven technology business incubators established in India in 2004.

Dr. Sivaram 's research interest concerns polymer synthesis, surface chemistry of polymers, porous polymers for energy-related applications, biodegradable polymers, organic-inorganic hybrids, nanocomposites and structure-property relationship in polymers. He has authored over two hundred and forty-five papers in peer-reviewed journals edited two books and authored one book. He is cited as an inventor in fifty-one issued US and European patents and fifty-two Indian patents. He has supervised the doctoral thesis of about forty students and mentored over fifteen post-doctoral fellows in a research career spanning fifty years.