BITS Pilani Dubai campus appoints Souri Banerjee as new director

NEW DELHI: Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) has announced the appointment of Souri Banerjee as the new director of their Dubai campus. Souri Banerjee began his tenure in August 2024 and will hold the position for the next five years. Banerjee took over from Srinivasan Madapusi, who had been serving as director since July 2021.

Banerjee started his career at the BITS Pilani, Pilani campus in 2004. In 2008, he took on the role of the founding head of the Physics department at the Hyderabad campus. Before being appointed as dean of faculty affairs in 2018, he served as associate dean of faculty affairs for five years, beginning in 2013, where he managed faculty affairs across all BITS Pilani campuses.

Multiple postdoctoral positions

According to BITS Pilani press release, Banerjee held multiple postdoctoral positions at the University of Electro-Communications and the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, and also served as a visiting professor at the University of Electro-Communications. Additionally, he worked as a research scientist at the central research laboratory of HITACHI in Tokyo.

Educational background and recognitions

Souri Banerjee did his PhD in condensed matter physics from the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, in 1997. Following his PhD, he briefly worked at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai. According to BITS Pilani, he was also honored with the JSPS Foreign Research Fellowship twice, in 2012 and 2018, for his contributions to device physics.

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Welcoming Banerjee to BITS Pilani, V Ramgopal Rao, vice chancellor of BITS Pilani, said, “We are pleased to have Prof. Souri Banerjee on board and wish him all success in his new assignment. I am confident that his leadership and expertise will be instrumental in further enhancing our academic programs and research initiatives.

Rao further added, “I also take this opportunity to thank Prof Srinivasan Madapusi who has been extremely successful in his tenure. With his dynamic leadership, the campus has achieved significant milestones and grown manifold, taking the campus and BITS Pilani to greater heights.”