Personal Profile
Man Mohan Sharma was born in Jodhpur(Rajasthan) on May 1,1937. He did his education at Jodhpur, Mumbai and Cambridge and at the age of 27 he was appointed as a Professor in the University of Mumbai, Department of Chemical Technology.
Professor Sharma has published 235 papers based on original research, in international journals of high standing, and supervised 71 students in completing their Doctoral dissertations during his distinguished career.
His Contribution in Growth of Different Industries
He has been member of Board of Directors of several reputed companies like Indian Petrochemical Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Hindustan Organic Chemicals, Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd, Gharda Chemicals Ltd and Resins and Plastics etc from the early 1970s. He brought a rare clarity to the planning of to various industries as their adviser/consultant.
Professor Sharma was an exponent of innovations and he stressed for the industry to adopt techniques which eventually led to the successful implementation of many technologies. This resulted in substantial improvement in turn over, and financial advantage in different sectors of industry such as soda ash, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and petroleum refining.
He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, Govt. of India on different occasions and had been Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas from 1981 to June 2001. Currently he is Chairman of FIST, DST and Swarnajayanthi Fellowships/Scholarships, DST.
Professor’s Contributions to Chemical Engineering
He was editor of one of the most prestigious journals in Chemical Engineering, namely Chemical Engineering Science (Pergamon Press, UK) from 1975 to 1986. In addition, he has been member of Editorial Advisory Boards of several international journals of repute. For outstanding publications, he got the Moulton Medal of the Institution of Chemical Engineering, U.K. in 1971 and 1977.
Awards and Honours
For his contributions and achievements, Prof. M.M. Sharma has been recognised through several honours and awards. Some of them are: S.S. Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences in 1973, FICCI Award in 1981, the Vishwakarma Medal of the INSA in 1985, G.M. Modi Award in 1991, Meghnad Saha Medal in 1994, the prestigious Leverhulme Medal of the Royal Society in 1996, H.K. Firodia Award and Shatabdi Puraskar of the Indian Science Congress Association in 1999.
BHU Varanasi, Roorkee University, SM Kanpur University, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and University of Mumbai have honoured Prof. Sharma with Honorary Doctorates.
Prof. Man Mohan Sharma was elected as a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) in 1976 and was President of the Academy in 1989-1990. He was elected as the Fellow of Royal Society (FRS), U.K., in 1990 and was the first engineer from India to become a Fellow. Prof. Sharma was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1987 and Padma Vibhushan in 2001.
