Prof. Rajakumar Balla, FRSC, FNASc Born in a very remote village of the Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh to Sri Suryanarayana and Smt. Jayalakshmi in 1971. Obtained B.Sc from Sri Durgaprasad Sharaf College of Arts and Applied Sciences, Sriram Nagar, Garividi of Vizianagaram District of Andhra Pradesh. Studied M.Sc. in Chemistry in the School of Chemistry, Andhra University Visakhapatnam. Introduced to the field of gas phase Physical Chemistry by Prof. E. Arunan at the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC) of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and obtained Ph. D in 2002 under his supervision. Further, pursued research in the area of the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics as a post doctoral researcher under the leadership of the famous scientist Prof. Dr. A. R. Ravishankara at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. Returned to India in 2006 and joined the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) as an Assistant Professor and currently working as a Professor.