OBITUARY
Professor
B. D. Gupta
Department of Chemistry,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Website: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bdg/
Professor B. D. Gupta passed away on March 31, 2011 at 7 a. m. He was 62 years old. He is survived by his wife and three children. He was on leave from IIT Kanpur and was serving as the vice-chancellor of Bahra University at Waknaghat, Solan district in Himachal Pradesh.
Prof. B. D. Gupta was born in Bathinda in 20th January, 1949. He received his BS and MS degrees from Panjab University Chandigarh. Then he went to Flinders University, Australia and received his Ph. D. in 1975. After a brief stint at University College London as a Research Associate, he accepted the faculty position at Roorkee University (now IIT Roorkee). In 1980, he moved to IIT Kanpur and became Assistant Professor in 1982. He has been a full professor at the department of Chemistry since 1988.
He served as the Chair (Chemistry department) and Dean at IIT Ropar for a year. He recently took the current position of Vice Chancellor of Bahra University.
Professor B. D. Gupta guided 10 Ph.D. students and has published more than 100 research papers in highly reputed international Journals. His work on organo-cobalt compounds and vitamin B12 model compounds have received national and international acclaim. He has been the recipient of Khosla Medal of IIT Roorkee twice.
He has been a visiting Professor at University of Texas at Arlington, Ohio University Athens, Waseda University Japan for more than four years. He has been a consultant and a visiting scientist to SRI International, Menlo Park USA (formerly Stanford Research Institute) in 1995, 1997 and 1999.
Prof. B. D. Gupta has recently co-authored a book ‘Basic Organometallic Chemistry: Concepts, Syntheses, And Applications Of Transition Metals’ with Prof. A. J. Elias of IIT Delhi.
He has contributed a great deal to the IIT Kanpur administration and has served as chairman and member of many committees related to the welfare of the employees, assessments, stores, housing, space, hostels, senate rules, elections etc.
The students, staffs and colleagues of the Chemistry department, along with the IIT Kanpur community mourn the loss of Prof. B. D. Gupta. We express our deepest condolences to his family. May God rest his soul in peace.