Biography

Sankar K. Pal (https://www.isical.ac.in/~sankar) is a Distinguished Scientist, and former Director & President of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). Currently, he is an ANRF Prime Minister Professor, Govt. of India, hosted at IIIT Bhubaneswar; and an Emeritus Professor of Indian Statistical Institute. He is also an AICTE nominated AICTE-Distinguished Chair Professor, a Scholar-in-Residence of IIT Jodhpur, Visiting Distinguished Professor of IIT Indore; Adjunct Professor of IIIT Gwalior, and a Vice-President of International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (AIIA). He founded the Machine Intelligence Unit and the Center for Soft Computing Research: A National Facility in ISI, Calcutta. He received a Ph.D. in Radio Physics and Electronics from Indian Statistical Institute/ University of Calcutta in 1979, and another Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering along with DIC from Imperial College, University of London in 1982. He joined his Institute (ISI) in 1975 as a CSIR Senior Research Fellow where he became a Full Professor in 1987, a Distinguished Scientist in 1998, later serving as the Director during 2005-2010, and the President during 2022-2026.

Prof. Pal worked at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Maryland, College Park in 1986-87; the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas in 1990-92 & 1994; and in US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC in 2004. Since 1997 he has been a Distinguished Visitor of IEEE Computer Society (USA) for the Asia-Pacific Region, and held several visiting positions in Italy, Poland, Hong Kong and Australian universities.

He has received the 1990 S.S. Bhatnagar Prize (which is the most coveted award for a scientist in India); 2013 Padma Shri (one of the highest civilian awards) by the President of India, and many prestigious awards in India and abroad including the 1999 G.D. Birla Award; 1998 Om Bhasin Award from the Prime Minister of India; 1993 Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship; 2000 Khwarizmi International Award from the President of Iran; 2000-2001 FICCI Award; 1993 Vikram Sarabhai Research Award; 1993 NASA Tech Brief Award (USA); 1994 IEEE Trans. Neural Networks Outstanding Paper Award; 1995 NASA Patent Application Award (USA); 1997 IETE-R.L. Wadhwa Gold Medal; 1998 IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Speaker for Aisa-Pacific; 2001 INSA-S.H. Zaheer Medal; 2006 Indian Science Congress-P.C. Mahalanobis Birth Centenary Gold Medal from the Prime Minister of India for Lifetime Achievement; 2006 Distinguished Alumnus of the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, University of Calcutta; 2007 J.C. Bose National Fellowship; 2008 Vigyan Ratna Award from Science and Culture Organization, West Bengal; 2013 INAE Chair Professorship; 2013 IETE Diamond Jubilee Medal; 2014 IEEE Fellow Class Golden Jubilee Medal; 2015 INAE-S.N. Mitra Award; 2015 DAE Raja Ramanna Fellowship, Govt. of India; 2017 INSA-Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture Award; 2018 INSA-Distinguished Professorial Chair; Scholar-in-Residence, 2019; 2020 SERB-National Science Chair, Govt. of India; First Prof. C. Mohan Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Soft Computing from the Soft Computing Research Society, 2020; 2021 AICTE-Distinguished Chair Professor; 2023-P.C. Mahalanobis Memorial Lecture Award, Department of Science and Technology and Biotechnology, Govt. of West Bengal; 2023-Distinguished Alumni Award from Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College, Calcutta; 2024 INSA-Distinguished Lecture Fellowship; Visiting Distinguished Professor, IIT Indore, 2025; Doctor of Science (D.Sc), honoris causa from Sai University, Chennai in October 2025; and 2026 INAE-Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering.

Prof. Pal is a Fellow of IEEE, the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), International Association for Pattern recognition, International Association of Fuzzy Systems, International Rough Set Society, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA), International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (AIIA), Web Intelligence Academy (WIA), and all the four National Academies for Science/Engineering in India. He is also a Foreign Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

He has received the 1990 S.S. Bhatnagar Prize (which is the most coveted award for a scientist in India); 2013 Padma Shri (one of the highest civilian awards) by the President of India, and many prestigious awards in India and abroad including the 1999 G.D. Birla Award; 1998 Om Bhasin Award from the Prime Minister of India; 1993 Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship; 2000 Khwarizmi International Award from the President of Iran; 2000-2001 FICCI Award; 1993 Vikram Sarabhai Research Award; 1993 NASA Tech Brief Award (USA); 1994 IEEE Trans. Neural Networks Outstanding Paper Award; 1995 NASA Patent Application Award (USA); 1997 IETE-R.L. Wadhwa Gold Medal; 1998 IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Speaker for Aisa-Pacific; 2001 INSA-S.H. Zaheer Medal; 2006 Indian Science Congress-P.C. Mahalanobis Birth Centenary Gold Medal from the Prime Minister of India for Lifetime Achievement; 2006 Distinguished Alumnus of the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, University of Calcutta; 2007 J.C. Bose National Fellowship; 2008 Vigyan Ratna Award from Science and Culture Organization, West Bengal; 2013 INAE Chair Professorship; 2013 IETE Diamond Jubilee Medal; 2014 IEEE Fellow Class Golden Jubilee Medal; 2015 INAE-S.N. Mitra Award; 2015 DAE Raja Ramanna Fellowship, Govt. of India; 2017 INSA-Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture Award; 2018 INSA-Distinguished Professorial Chair; 2020 SERB-National Science Chair, Govt. of India; First Prof. C. Mohan Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Soft Computing from the Soft Computing Research Society, 2020; 2021 AICTE-Distinguished Chair Professor; 2023-P.C. Mahalanobis Memorial Lecture Award, Department of Science and Technology and Biotechnology, Govt. of West Bengal; 2023-Distinguished Alumni Award from Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College, Calcutta; 2024 INSA-Distinguished Lecture Fellowship; Doctor of Science (D.Sc), honoris causa from Sai University, Chennai on October 2025; and INAE-Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering.

Prof. Pal is/was an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (2002-06), IEEE Trans. Neural Networks (1994-98 & 2003-06), IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Systems (1993-95), Neurocomputing (1995-2005), Pattern Recognition Letters (1993-2011), Int. J. Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence, Information Sciences, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, LNCS Trans. Rough Sets, Journal of Data, Information and Management, Applied Intelligence (2002-12), Fundamenta Informaticae (2003-19), IET Image Processing (2007-19), Int. J. Computational Intelligence and Applications, Ingeniería y Ciencia (2014-15), and J. Intelligent Information Systems (2008-12), Proc. Indian National Science Academy (2026 to date); Editor-in-Chief, Int. J. Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition (2008-19); a Book Series Editor, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, IOS Press, and Statistical Science and Interdisciplinary Research, World Scientific; a Member, Executive Advisory Editorial Board, IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Systems, Int. Journal on Image and Graphics, Int. Journal of Approximate Reasoning, and Data-Centric Engineering, Cambridge Univ. Press; and a Guest Editor of IEEE Computer, IEEE SMC, Theoretical Computer Science, Applied Soft Computing, and Natural Computing.

Besides, Prof. Pal has made him available for the societal benefits and promoting education/research at large: i) participated in as much as 40 science outreach programs for school and college students including North-East states; ii) established biennial International Conference “Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence” in 2005; iii) founded Kolkata-Chapter of INAE in 2007 to help the regional engineering students/professionals; and iv) instituted two Merit-cum-Means Scholarships in his alma-mater at Kolkata in 2013 for supporting economically disadvantaged students of Classes IX and X every year, a Gold Medal at Ramkrishna Mission-Vivekananda Centenary College, Kolkata in 2023 for motivating best graduating B.Sc.(Hons) student to higher studies, and a Gold Medal at ISI in 2003 for best M.Tech.(CS) dissertation to encourage research excellence.

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