Shailesh Nayak

Dr. Shailesh Nayak currently is 'Distinguished Scientist' in the Ministry of Earth Sciences. He was the Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, during  August 2008-2015, and provided leadership for programs related to earth system sciences. He obtained PhD degree in Geology from the M.S University of Baroda in 1980. He has been credited with launching many research programs related to monsoon, air-sea interaction, changing water cycle, atmospheric chemistry, coastal vulnerability, climate services, etc. with US, UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, Norway, South Korea. He had set up HPC system having 1.1 Peta flops capacity for weather and climate research and operations.  He had restructured meteorological activities in the country and thus improved weather and hazard related services.

He had set up the state-of-the-art tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean in 2007 in just two years time, and providing tsunami advisories to the Indian Ocean rim countries. He pioneered in development of algorithms and methodologies for application of remote sensing to coastal and marine environment, and generated baseline database of the Indian coast, and developed services for fishery and ocean state forecast.

He is Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru and the National Academy of Sciences, India, Allahabad.  He has been awarded Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science by the Andhra University in 2011, Assam University in 2013 and Amity University in 2015. He was conferred the prestigious ISC Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Award 2012 as well as Bhaskara Award for 2009, Fellowship of the International Society of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and Elected Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) for his outstanding contributions in remote sensing and GIS. He has published about 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals