Prof. Birinchi Kumar Das is a Visiting Professor and Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellow. Birinchi will be working with the Ragauskas research group in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Prof. Das was born in an Indian village widely known as Ramdia in Assam, India. He was schooled in his native home town, with his father as one of his high school teachers. He knows a small bit of Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit and English, and of course his mother tongue, Assamese.

A first class postgraduate in chemistry and a holder of the doctoral degree from India’s most prestigious research institution, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, where he won the Dr. J. C. Ghosh Gold Medal for his Ph.D. thesis. He had earlier worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Prof. M. G. Kanatzidis at Michigan State University, USA for over two years. Prof. Das also spent a year as a visiting Commonwealth Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. James H. Clark of the University of York, UK. He now works as a professor at Gauhati University. This institution is situated at Guwahati, the capital city of Assam, which is often called the Gateway to the Northeast of India.

Representing the most forested part of India, he wants to be involved in work leading to the utilization of renewable bio-resources for the production of value-added products including fuels. In his work he intends to make use of inorganic catalysts while keeping in mind the precepts of green chemistry to ensure a sustainable future through applications of science and technology.

Please welcome Prof. Das to Chemistry and Georgia Tech!