Dr. Shailesh Nayak was honoured with Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian awards of the republic of India. The award consists of a certificate and a medallion presented by the President of India, in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order in Science and Engineering. He is an Indian scientist and is currently Director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Chancellor of TERI School of Advanced Studies, and Distinguished Scientist in the Ministry of Earth Sciences. He was the Chair of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) and Secretary, Ministry of Earth
Sciences, Government of India.
Dr. Nayak was responsible for the conceptualization and development of Marine GIS. He made outstanding contributions to improve advisory services related to potential fishing zones, ocean state forecasts, and the Indian Argo project. He set up HPC system having 1.1 Peta flops capacity for weather and climate research and operations. He established the state-of-the-art tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean in 2007, thus providing tsunami advisories to the Indian Ocean rim countries.
Dr. Nayak is Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru, and The National Academy of Sciences, India. He has been awarded Honorary Doctor of Science by the Andhra University in 2011, Assam University in 2013 and Amity University in 2015, and Graphic Era University in 2024 among other laurels. He has published about 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
