Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao worked in chemistry at a period when the field was still deciding what counted as an answer.
Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao was born at Bengaluru in 1934. His recorded nationality is India. He was educated at Banaras Hindu University and Bangalore University.
Twentieth-century science was collaborative, expensive and political: the questions were pursued by teams, and the answers had consequences that reached well past the laboratory.
His working life was spent at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, where the work centred on solid-state chemistry.
Chemistry is the science of what matter actually does, and it moves one stubbornly repeated experiment at a time.
That the work was done from India matters to the story. Science has never been evenly distributed, and where a person is based has always shaped which problems are reachable and whose results get read.
Recognition followed: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Royal Medal (2009), Hughes Medal (2000) and Legion of Honour.
What that record amounts to is a body of chemistry that later workers could build on without re-checking. That is the practical test of a scientific life, and it is a harder one than fame.
Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao is still working, and the final assessment of his contribution has not been made - the ordinary condition of a living scientist.
Achievements
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
- Royal Medal — 2009
- Hughes Medal — 2000
- Legion of Honour
- Fellow of the Royal Society
- Held posts at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
- Educated at Banaras Hindu University, Bangalore University and Central College of Bengaluru
- Fields of research: solid-state chemistry
