UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Evan Pugh University Professor and Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State, was one of eight recipients who recently received the Alumnus of the Century in Making Award from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi.
The one-time award honors Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) distinguished alumni who have made exceptional contributions to society. The awards were conferred as part of the institute’s Centenary Celebrations and Global Alumni Meet 2019, held Feb. 9-12 in Varanasi, India. The event commemorated 100 years of engineering education at Banaras Hindu University, one of the world’s largest residential universities.
Lakhtakia, who holds a B.Tech. (1979) and D.Sc. (2006) in electronics engineering from Banaras Hindu University, was presented with his award by Manoj Sinha, minister of communications and minister of state (independent charge), railways in the Government of India.
An internationally recognized scholar who researches nanotechnology and the behavior of electromagnetic fields and waves in complex materials, Lakhtakia has developed novel coating techniques for industrially scalable bioreplication, which holds promise for applications ranging from retrieving fingerprints to harvesting solar energy.
Since joining Penn State in 1983, Lakhtakia has been honored for his teaching and research with a 1996 Penn State Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS) Outstanding Research Award, a 2005 Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 Award for Nanotechnology, a 2005 PSEAS Outstanding Advising Award, a 2006 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal, a 2008 PSEAS Premier Research Award, the 2010 International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Technical Achievement Award, a 2016 PSEAS Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2016 Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation.
Lakhtakia also received a 2007 University Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Utah, where he earned a master’s degree and doctoral degree in electrical engineering in 1981 and 1983, respectively.
He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, SPIE, the Institute of Physics (United Kingdom), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.