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Dr. Chaitanyamoy Ganguly was born in West Bengal, India on 31 December, 1946 and had his schooling at St. Lawrence High School, Calcutta (renamed Kolkata). He did his graduation (1968) and PhD (1980), in Metallurgical Engineering, from Bengal Engineering College, University of Calcutta, now a deemed university, renamed the Indian Institute of Engineering Science & Technology, Shibpur (IIESTS). His post graduation is in Nuclear Science & Engineering from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Bombay (now Mumbai). He did pre and post doctoral research on Nuclear Fuels at the Nuclear Research Centres at Karlsruhe & Juelich, Germany and is a Humboldt Fellow.
Dr. Ganguly is well known in the nuclear fuels community in India and abroad for his pioneering contributions in R & D on “Sintering of Uranium, Plutonium and Thorium bearing Oxide & Mixed Oxides and Mixed Carbide and Nitride Fuels”. Based on his doctoral thesis, he developed and manufactured the hitherto untried plutonium - rich mixed uranium plutonium carbide fuel for the 40 MWt Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) in India, that is in operation since October 1985. Dr Ganguly has also deployed the Low Temperature Oxidative Sintering (LTS) and the combined Sol-Gel Microsphere Pelletization (SGMP) – LTS processes for remote and automated fabrication of uranium oxide and mixed uranium plutonium oxide fuel pellets economically and safely. He has also made significant contributions on the sintering of mixed thorium uranium and thorium plutonium oxide fuel pellets for the upcoming Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) in India.
Dr. Ganguly served the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India for nearly 36 years and retired as Distinguished Scientist. He played a key role, in the early 1970s, in setting up the plutonium fuels laboratory at Radio Metallurgy Division (RMD), BARC, particularly the powder metallurgy facilities inside glove boxes. He was Head , RMD for nine years before he joined the Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI), a CSIR laboratory at Kolkata, as Director, He then moved to the nuclear fuel industry in India as Chairman and Chief Executive of Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) at Hyderabad, a DAE unit, responsible for manufacturing uranium oxide fuels for nuclear power reactors in India. In August 2004, Dr Ganguly was selected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna for the post of Head , Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Materials Section. After retiring from IAEA, Dr Ganguly worked for Cameco Corporation, Canada, the largest uranium mining and nuclear fuel services company in the world, as President, Cameco India office. Since 2013, Dr Ganguly is with academic institutions. First, as Distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Kanpur and since 2015 as Distinguished Professor and Advisor to the Director General, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
Dr. Ganguly is author of some 250 research papers and is Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Indian Academy of Science, Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), Institution of Engineers and Indian Institute of Metals. He is recipient of National Metallurgist Award of the Ministry of Steel and Mines, the Tata Gold Medal of the Indian Institute of Metals, the MRSI Medal and the Vasvik Award. Dr Ganguly received the first Indian Nuclear Society Award from the Honourable Prime Minister of India in 2001 and was conferred one of the highest civilian awards, namely, the “Padmashri” by the Hon. President of India, in 2002.
Dr. Ganguly has a nuclear family. His wife, Dr Taposhi Ganguly is a molecular biologist and their only son, Rishi, is an economist and an entrepreneur. They have settled at Hyderabad.