Prof. Surinder Kumar Mehta Honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award

Chandigarh, September 22, 2026: Prof. Surinder Kumar Mehta, FRSC, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ladakh and Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Panjab University, Chandigarh, has been conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by Desh Bhagat University (DBU) in recognition of his distinguished contributions to teaching, research and academic leadership under the initiative DBU Research Excellence Awards 2026.
Prof. Mehta has more than 37 years of research experience and over 34 years of teaching experience. His major research contributions span Colloidal Chemistry, Nanochemistry, Materials Science and Drug Delivery, with more recent work focusing on green nanomaterials, environmental sensing, water remediation, clean energy and electrocatalysis.
He has published 471 research papers in international journals and has accumulated more than 20,000 citations, with a Google Scholar h-index of 74 and i10-index of 366. He is also the author/co-author of numerous books and book chapters and holds four Indian patents. His research has been supported by major funding agencies including DST, CSIR, UGC and ICMR, besides international collaborative programmes with Germany, Japan and the UK.
A committed mentor, Prof. Mehta has supervised 58 Ph.D. scholars, 19 post-doctoral/research associates and 51 M.Sc. students, besides training numerous young researchers.
Prof. Mehta is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and has received several honours, including the CRSI Bronze Medal, Haryana Vigyan Ratna Award, Honorary DAAD Advisor, Prof. W.U. Malik Memorial Award, STE Green Excellence Award, Mahakaruna Award and B.N. Ghosh Memorial Award. He has also been recognised among the world’s top 2% scientists in Stanford-based listings for 5 years continuously.
The Lifetime Achievement Award by DBU recognises Prof. Mehta’s sustained contributions to scientific research, higher education, academic leadership and mentoring of generations of young researchers.
Prof. Mehta dedicated the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award to his mentors, colleagues, and research students, acknowledging their invaluable guidance, support, and contributions throughout his academic and research journey.