Bhubaneswar: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Dr Ajit Kumar Mohanty, Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) as Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission for tenure up to the age of 66 years, i.e. till October 10, 2025, or until further orders, whichever is earlier, a notification issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department of Personnel and Training said on Saturday.
Mohanty, born in Odisha in 1959, was appointed as the 13th Director of BARC on March 12, 2019.
He did his graduation with Honours in Physics from MPC College, Baripada, in 1979 and post-graduation from the erstwhile Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, in 1981. In 1983, Mohanty joined the Nuclear Physics Division, BARC, after graduating from the 26th Batch of BARC Training School. He obtained his doctorate from Mumbai University.
Mohanty has worked in several areas of nuclear physics covering collision energy from the sub-Coulomb barrier to the relativistic regime using the Pelletron accelerator at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), PHENIX, and CMS experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, and CERN, Geneva.
Having held several honorary positions at various organisations, Mohanty has served as the General Secretary of the Indian Physics Association (IPA) and later as its President. He has twice been the CERN Scientific Associate, first during 2002-2004 and again during 2010-2011. He is a recipient of the Young Physicist Award from the Indian Physical Society in 1988, the Indian National Science Academy Young Scientist Award in 1991, and the Homi Bhaba Science and Technology Award of the Department of Atomic Energy in 2001. Recently, Mohanty was conferred Honorary Doctrin of Literature (D Litt) Honoris Causa by Utkal University.
