Garikapati Narahari Sastry

Garikapati Narahari Sastry is an Indian chemist. He has taken charge as Director of CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam on 19 February 2019. After taking charge as the Director, he has worked towards converting knowledge in the areas of computational modelling and Artificial intelligence from basic to translational research, by working closely with society and industry. Ultimately, revitalizing the strength of science and technology is essential in achieving the self-reliant and strong India. In the era of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, combining our traditional wisdom with modern science appear to be indispensable in the sectors such as Education, Health, Agriculture, Industrial and Societal development at large. Prior to joining as the Director, he headed the Molecular Modelling Division at the CSIR Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad, India. Sastry has made pioneering contributions in the areas of computational chemistry and computational biology.

He was awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2011, the highest science award in India, in the chemical sciences category.

After two postdoctoral stints, he moved to India and he has served as Assistant Professor in Pondicherry University for five years (1997 – 2002). There majorly focused on Molecular modelling and theoretical and physical organic chemistry. In 2002 he moved to CSIR – Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad where he served for almost two decades and made fundamental contributions in supramolecular chemistry which itself is a highly interdisciplinary areas. In 2019, he took charge as a Director in CSIR – North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam. He also holds additional charge as Head of the Department of Advanced Computation and Data Sciences Division.

G. N. Sastry completed his BSc (1985) and MSc (1988) from Osmania University. He earned his PhD from University of Hyderabad in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. E. D. Jemmis in 1995. Subsequently, he moved to Israel to carry out his first postdoctoral studies (1994 – 1996) with Prof. Sason Shaik in Hebrew University where he majorly focused on valance bond modelling and electronic transfer reactions. In 1996, he moved to Switzerland and did his second postdoctoral studies with Prof. Thomas Bally in University of Fibourg, Switzerland. In Switzerland he worked in Molecular modelling and theoretical and physical organic chemistry.