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Sankar Kumar Nath (b. 3 January 1960) is an Indian geophysicist, seismologist and the vice chancellor of the University of Burdwan. He was previously a senior professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He is known for his geotomographical studies and is an elected fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian Geophysical Union and the National Academy of Sciences, India, The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 2002.

Biography

S. K. Nath, born on 3 January 1960 in the Indian state of West Bengal, graduated in geology (BSc hons) in 1979 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and completed his master's degree in exploration geophysics from the same institution in 1981, passing both the examinations with first rank; his thesis for the master's degree earned him a Silver Medal for the best thesis. After working as a CSIR junior research fellow at IIT Kharagpur for 6 months, he started his career as a junior geophysicist with Indicos Computer Services, a Mumbai-based firm, in 1982. Two years later, he moved to Oil India station in Assam where he worked as a geoscientist and senior geoscientist till 1988. Returning to his home state in January that year, he had a short stint of 7 months at Computech Ispat, Kolkata as the processing manager before enrolling for doctoral studies at IIT Kharagpur, simultaneously working as a lecturer. During this period, he secured a PhD in seismic prospecting in 1993 and did his post-doctoral studies on earthquake seismology at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks during 1995–96 at the laboratory of Niren N. Biswas. On his return to India in 1996, he resumed his service at IIT Kharagpur and served in various capacities as an assistant professor, associate professor and professor before becoming the head of the department of geology and geophysics in 2003 and held the post till 2006. He also had a second stint at University of Alaska Fairbanks as a visiting scientist during 1998–2003. He continues his association with IIT Kharagpur as a senior professor.

Legacy

Nath is known to have studied the seismic activities in the Himalayan region including the earthquakes in Nepal in April and May 2015 and has contributed to developing novel applications of geotomography. He has been involved in a number of government-sponsored project studies which included Seismic Hazard Microzonation and Evaluation of Vulnerability & Risk of Sikkim Himalaya, Guwahati Megacity, Urban Kolkata and Kashmir Valley project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, National Programme in Earthquake Engineering Education in India of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, National Programme for Capacity Building of Engineers in Earthquake Risk Management of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Programme of the National Disaster Management Authority. His studies have been documented in several peer-reviewed articles; Google Scholar and ResearchGate, online repositories of scientific articles, have listed 122 and 93 of them respectively. He is the author of the Seismic Microzonation Manual and Seismic Microzonation Handbook published by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and the editor of Training Handbook for the Faculty of the State Resource Institutions, a reference manual for capacity building in earthquake risk management published by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the former two are prescribed texts for academic education in India. Besides, he is the author of Schlumberger Geoelectric Sounding in Gro, a text explaining the application of Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) curves in explorational geophysics. Nath, who has delivered several keynote and plenary addresses at seminars and conferences in India and abroad, is also credited with contributions in the establishment of a strong motion network 16 earthquake monitoring stations in the Himalayan region and two broadband seismological observatories at the Kharagpur and Kolkata campuses of IIT Kharagpur.

Awards and honors

S. K. Nath received the National Mineral Award of the Ministry of Mines in 1999 and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2002. The Bharat Jyoti Award of the India International Friendship Society reached him in 2003 and he received two awards in 2004 viz. SGAT Award of Excellence of the Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists and Homi J. Bhabha Award for Applied Sciences of Hari OM Ashram Trust and the University Grants Commission of India. These were followed by the Dr. J. Coggin Brown Memorial Gold Medal which he received in 2005. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a life member of the Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Sankar Kumar Nath, Hari Pada Patra (1999). Schlumberger Geoelectric Sounding in Gro. CRC Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-9054107897.
• S. K. Nath (2011). "Seismic Microzonation Manual". Ministry of Earth Sciences. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
• S. K. Nath (2011). "Seismic Microzonation Handbook". Ministry of Earth Sciences. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
• S. K. Nath (editor). "Training Handbook for the Faculty of the State Resource Institutions". Training manual. Ministry of Home Affairs. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)

Articles

• Nath, S. K., Roy, D. and Thingbaijam, K. K. S. (2008). "Disaster mitigation and management for West Bengal, India An appraisal". Curr. Sci. 94 (7): 858–866.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Nath, S. K., Shukla, K., Vyas M. J. (2008). "Seismic Hazard Scenario and Attenuation Model of the Garhwal Himalaya using Near Field Synthesis from Weak Motion Seismometry". J. Earth Syst. Sci. 117 (a): 649–670. Bibcode:2008JESS..117..649N. doi:10.1007/s12040-008-0062-6. S2CID 129921624.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Sankar Kumar Nath, Kiran Kumar Singh Thingbaijam, Abhishek Raj (2008). "Earthquake Hazard in the Northeast India - A Seismic Microzonation Approach with Typical Case Studies from Sikkim Himalaya and Guwahati city". J. Earth Syst. Sci. 118 (S2): 809–831. Bibcode:2008JESS..117..809N. doi:10.1007/s12040-008-0070-6. S2CID 129013751.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• S. K. Nath, K. K. S. Thingbaijam (2009). "Seismic hazard assessment – a holistic microzonation approach". Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 9 (4): 1445–1459. Bibcode:2009NHESS...9.1445N. doi:10.5194/nhess-9-1445-2009.
• S. K. Nath, A. Raj, K. K. S. Thingbaijam, A. Kumar (2009). "Ground Motion Synthesis and Seismic Scenario in Guwahati City—A Stochastic Approach". Seismological Research Letters. 80 (2): 233–242. Bibcode:2009SeiRL..80..233N. doi:10.1785/gssrl.80.2.233.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

See also

• Seismic microzonation
• Geology of the Himalaya
• Operation Sankat Mochan
• Operation Maitri

Notes

1. Long link - please select award year to see details
2. Please see Selected bibliography section

References

1. "New Vice Chancellor of Burdwan University :: Prof. Sankar Kumar Nath from IIT Kharagpur".
2. "Government of West Bengal Notification of the appointment of the new VC of the Burdwan University" (PDF).
3. "Prof Sankar Kumar Nath on Vidwan". Vidwan. 2016.
4. ^ "Brief Profile of the Awardee". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
5. ^ "INAE fellows". Indian National Academy of Engineering. 2016. Archived from the original on 2015-04-03.
6. ^ "IGU fellows" (PDF). Indian Geophysical Union. 2016.
7. ^ "NASI fellows" (PDF). National Academy of Sciences, India. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-08-06. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
8. "View Bhatnagar Awardees". Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
9. ^ "Faculty profile" (PDF). IIT Kharagpur. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-06. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
10. ^ "Nath on Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre". VNCC - Department of Atomic Energy. 2016.
11. "Nepal earthquake: This one was big but The Big One is yet to come, say experts". News report. Indian Express. May 12, 2015.
12. "List of Publications of Prof. Sankar Kumar Nath" (PDF). IIT Kharagpur. 2016.
13. "On Google Scholar". Google Scholar. 2016.
14. "On ResearchGate". 2016.
15. "Seismic Microzonation Manual and Handbook". Ministry of Earth Sciences. 2016.
16. "Course Structure" (PDF). Indian School of Mines. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
17. Sankar Kumar Nath, Hari Pada Patra (1999). Schlumberger Geoelectric Sounding in Gro. CRC Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-9054107897.
18. "VECC Colloqium" (PDF). Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre. 2014.
19. "National Geoscience Award" (PDF). Ministry of Mines (India). 2016. p. 55. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-11-30.
20. "Earth Sciences". Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
21. ^ "S. K. Nath on Technology Transfer Group". TTG-IIT Kharagpur. 2016.
22. "UGC- Hari Om Ashram Trust Awards". University Grants Commission. 2016.
23. "Life member - SGAT" (PDF). Society of Geoscientists and Allied Technologists. 2016.

External links

• S. K. Nath (2011). "Seismic Microzonation Manual" (PDF). full text. Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• S. K. Nath (2011). "Seismic Microzonation Handbook" (PDF). full text. Ministry of Earth Sciences. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
• "Seismic Hazard Group" (PDF). Profile of the research group. IIT Kharagpur. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2017-01-02.

• Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean & Planetary Sciences
• 1960 births
• Indian geophysicists
• Scientists from West Bengal
• Indian seismologists
• IIT Kharagpur alumni
• Academic staff of IIT Kharagpur
• University of Alaska Fairbanks alumni
• Fellows of the Indian Geophysical Union
• Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, India
• Living people
• 20th-century Indian earth scientists