P. Raveendran is Calicut varsity V-C

P. Raveendran, Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Calicut, who is at present holding full charge as Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of the institution, has been appointed to the post for a four-year term by Governor and Chancellor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar.

The three-member search-cum-selection committee for choosing a new V-C had held interviews with 35 applicants in the State capital on January 18 and 19. The committee is reported to have given a list of three to five names to the Chancellor’s office thereafter. A note from the Chancellor’s office said on Wednesday that the appointment is subject to the final judgment in a writ petition filed by the State government in the Kerala High Court. In the petition, the government had legally challenged the notification seeking applications for the V-C’s post issued by the Chancellor’s office.

The V-C’s appointment followed four turbulent meetings by the senate to choose its nominee, the decision of two of the nominees to decline the post, and intervention of the Kerala High Court to fast-track the process.

Mr. Raveendran has been working as Professor at the University of Calicut since December 2011. In July 2024, he was appointed as the V-C in-charge by the then Governor Arif Mohammed Khan. A native of Pulamanthole in Malappuram district, Mr. Raveendran received his MSc degree in Chemistry from Christ College, Irinjalakuda. He got his PhD from IIT Madras in 1998. Mr. Raveendran was a post-doctoral visiting scientist at the University of Gottingen, Germany, during 1999-2000. In 2000, he was awarded an NSF Post-doctoral Research Associateship to work at the Science & Technology Center for Environmentally Responsible Solvents and Processes at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, U.S. He worked there during 2000-2003 and made seminal contributions in Green Chemistry and Nanotechnology.

Between 2003 and 2006, he worked at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology, Japan, as a Fellow of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science. He was also a recipient of the CREST (Core Research in Evolutional Science & Technology) Fellowship from the Government of Japan.

In December 2005, he returned to India and joined the Department of Chemistry, University of Calicut, as a Reader. In 2008, he was elevated as Associate Professor and and as a full Professor in 2011.