Somendra Mohan Bhattacharjee received his Ph.D. in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, B. Sc in Physics (Honours) from Presidency College, Calcutta, and M. Sc. in Physics from the University of Calcutta. After doing post-doctoral research at the University of Massachusettes, Amherst, USA, and Bell Labs, Murray Hill, he joined the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar as a faculty member and continued till April 2019. His research interest is in theoretical condensed matter physics and biology-inspired physics mostly related to phase transitions. The force-induced unzipping transition of DNA is one of his most important contributions. He is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences, and a J C Bose National Fellow. He was a Regular Associate of ICTP, Trieste, Italy.