Prof. Sourav Pal is Director of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata on deputation from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He was formerly the Director of CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune and worked at NCL Pune for almost 33 years. He was instrumental in setting up Electronic Structure Theory Group at NCL He is a distinguished theoretical chemist and has contributed to methodological and conceptual developments on many-body electronic structure theory, to the area of density based chemical reactivity, as well as to catalytic and hydrogen storage materials using computational material science. With a 5 year integrated Masters degree in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur in 1977, and a Ph.D. degree from Calcutta University, he joined NCL in 1982. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA (1986-87) and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, Germany (1987). He was visiting Professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, University of Torun, Poland and the Institute for Molecular Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. He also holds Adjunct Professorships at IISER Pune and IIT Goa. He is also distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Kharagpur. He served as the President of Chemical Research Society of India for three years from April 1, 2014. He is a member of Executive Council of Federation of Asian Chemical Societies and is Chairman of Chemical Division Council of Bureau of Indian Standards. In addition, he has served on several important scientific committees in the country. He is a member of the Council of Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.