Vinod Kumar Singh earned his BSc (1978) from D. A. V College, Azamgarh and MSc (1980) from B.H.U. He received PhD (1986) from M.S. University Baroda, working at Malti-Chem Research Center, Nandesari under the mentorship of Dr Sukh Dev. He spent two years (1985-1987) in Canada, working at University of Calgary and University of British Columbia. Later, he moved to Harvard University(1987-1990) to work with Professor E. J. Corey (Nobel Laureate). After a brief stint as a senior scientist at Neurogen Corporation, USA, Professor Singh joined IIT Kanpur as an Assistant Professor (1990) and became Professor in 2001. He also held a position of Umang Gupta Chair Professor (2007-2010) at the same place. Since 2008, he is on deputation as a Founding Director, IISER Bhopal.
Professor Singh is an Editor of an Elsevier journal-Tetrahedron Lett. He is a Member, Editorial Advisory Board of Org. Lett. and J. Org. Chem. He was conferred upon D.Sc. (hc) by Jabalpur University in 2012.
Academic and Research Achievements: Singh's research work falls in the area of synthetic organic chemistry, more specifically, asymmetric synthesis. He has developed several new chiral ligands/catalysts for enantioselective reactions. He has also accomplished total synthesis of several bioactive natural products.
Other Contributions: He has served as a Mentor Director of IISER Berhampur, Founding Director of SPA Bhopal (additional charge) and the Chairman, BoG, NITTTR Bhopal. He also held the additional charge of Directorship of MANIT Bhopal and Mentor Director of IIIT Bhopal. He had been a Member of SAC-PM during 2009-2014.
Awards and Honours: Professor Singh's work has been recognized in the form of several awards and honors such as Swarnajayanti Fellowship (1998), S.S. Bhatnagar prize (2004), and Padma Shri (2014), among others. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (2005), National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad (2004), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
