Prof. Arun Grover
Professor Arun Kumar Grover, a condensed matter physicist of TIFR, served as the Vice Chancellor of the Panjab University, Chandigarh (2012-18). He is credited for mentoring and nurturing researchers, for promoting inter-institutional collaborations, for leading the commemoration of Birth Centenary of Homi Bhabha, nucleation of Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC).
On behalf of TIFR Alumni Association( TAA), A.K. Grover pursued several initiatives to seek new endowments to first revive the Best Ph.D Thesis Award in Physics, and added to it two new Best Thesis awards in (i) Mathematics & Computer Science and (ii) Biological & Chemical Sciences. He obtained a corpus amount from Infosys Foundation in 2002 to institute cash awards for the Indian students who win Medals at the International Science Olympiads. To supplement the honorarium paid to the Ph.D students at TIFR, he had obtained recurring annual grant (2003-07) from ‘Kanwal and Ann Rekhi Fund’ in California to institute ‘Career Development Awards’.
His contributions as Convener of the Bhabha Birth Centenary Committee (2008-11) included:
(i) Public Lectures, production of documentaries, exhibitions and printing of books on Homi Bhabha, (ii) conception of ‘Young Indian Scientists Colloquium (YISC-2009)’, (iii) hosting of first ever ‘Bhabha Fellowship Conclave (BFC-2009)’ of Homi Bhabha Fellows since 1970 , (iv) ‘Bhabha Centenary Symposium (BCS-2009)’, jointly sponsored by TIFR, BARC, Science Academies in India and The Royal Society, London. In 2009, he also sought an endowment from ‘Aruna and Devendra Lal Foundation’, USA to initiate the TAA Excellence awards.
His contributions as VC, PU include : (i) Initiation of monthly meetings of all Deans and the Chairpersons ; (ii) Creation of Research Promotion Cell for all domains; (iii) PU Colloquia series; (iv) Commemoration of 150 years of higher education in Punjab; (v) Release of five Postal stamps to commemorate birth centenaries of iconic faculty; (vi) Commissioning biographies of high achievers in science from erstwhile Punjab; (vii) Expository Lectures in honor of legendary alumni and teachers by raising endowments; (viii) Institution of Honors in the domains of Literature, Sports, Performing Arts and Enrichment of Knowledge on the lines of Honor for stellar Scientists and Technologists.
He was selected for Homi Bhabha Science and Technology Award (1995) of BARC-DAE for outstanding contributions in Magnetism and Superconductivity. He also served as the Vice President of Indian Academy of Sciences (2016-18), and was bestowed TAA Excellence Award in 2018.
He aligned himself with Society for Promotion for Science and Technology in India in 2019. As Vice President, SPSTI (since 2020), he partnered with Chandigarh Chapters of Science Academies to start hosting Annual lectures on all the Nobel Prizes, Abel Prize, Turing Award and World Food Prize.
He is embedded in Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh as Honorary Professor and Member, Board of Governors since 2018. He is also serving as a member of IUPAP Commission (C4) on Physics Education, and Working Group (WG 16) on Physics and Industry. He chaired (2024) the Committee to conceive the Institution Development Plan for PU for the next decade.