Nagpur, India: Dr S Venkata Mohan has taken charge as the new director of the CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI). He started his new role on Thursday.

Before this, Dr Mohan was a chief scientist at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) in Hyderabad. He has been working with CSIR-IICT since 1998 and has made important contributions to environmental engineering and sustainability.

Dr Mohan has a BTech in civil engineering and an MTech and PhD in environmental engineering. He has also worked as a visiting professor in Japan and a research fellow in Germany. His research focuses on bioenergy, decarbonisation, biorefineries, and waste recycling, helping to develop real-world solutions.

He has written over 450 research papers, 64 book chapters, and five books. He also holds 16 patents and has been cited more than 36,000 times, with an h-index of 103. He has guided 42 PhD students and received top awards like the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and the Tata Innovation Fellowship.

Dr Mohan is a fellow of India’s top science academies and has been named among the world’s top two per cent researchers by Stanford University.

With his vast experience, Dr Mohan’s leadership is expected to boost environmental research and sustainability efforts at CSIR-NEERI.