Manas Kumar Mandal
Dr. Manas K Mandal is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISC campus, Bangalore. He was formerly a Distinguished Scientist and Director-General - Life sciences in DRDO [2013-2016]. Prior to this, he was Chief Controller R&D (Life Sciences), DRDO. He was also the Director, Defense Institute of Psychological Research for about nine years. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Calcutta University and started his career as a Lecturer at Banaras Hindu University in 1983.
Research areas
Dr. Mandal specializes in the areas of Neuropsychology and Cognitive Sciences. His research areas include hemispheric lateralization and affective architecture of the brain. He has to his credit 14 books, over 100 research papers in international and Indian journals of high repute. These researches are cited in more than 300 international journals and books with over 5000 citations.
Dr. Mandal completed his post-doctoral research at Delaware University as Fulbright Fellow, USA in 1986-87, and at Waterloo University as an International Scientific Exchange Awardee, Canada in 1993-94. Dr. Mandal was a Professor of Psychology at the Department of HSS, Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, prior to joining DRDO in 2004. He was also a Visiting Professor at Kyushu University in Japan in 1997 & 2010-11. During 2003, he was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, USA.
Fellowships and awards
Dr. Mandal received various research fellowships and awards at national & international levels, such as, Indo-Canadian Shastri fellowship; Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada award; Fulbright fellowship, USA; Seymour Kety award, USA; German Academic Exchange (DAAD) fellowship, Germany; Career Award, U.G.C.; Young Scientist Award, ISCA; National Association of Medical Sciences Award; DRDO Spin-off Technology Award, etc. In 2005, Dr. Mandal and his team were given away 'Agni Award for Excellence in self-reliance' for the contribution towards the development of 'Computerized Pilot Selection System' for Air Force. For his overall contribution to psychological sciences, he was elected as the Fellow of National Association of Psychology in India in 2012; and for his contribution to Military Psychology, he was given away the ‘Technology Leadership Award’ by the Defense Minister of India and the 'Scientist of the Year' award by the Prime Minister of India in 2006 (DRDO).