Sankar Kumar Pal

Sankar Kumar Pal (born 1950) is a computer scientist and the President (& former Director) of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata. He is also a National Science Chair, Government of India. Prof. Pal is a computer scientist with an international reputation on pattern recognition, image processing, fuzzy neural network, rough fuzzy hybridization, soft computing, granular mining, and machine intelligence. He pioneered the development of fuzzy set theory, and neuro-fuzzy and rough-fuzzy computing for uncertainty modelling with demonstration in pattern recognition, image processing, machine learning, knowledge-based systems and data mining. Prof. Pal is widely recognized across the world for his pioneering and extraordinary contributions in Machine Intelligence, Fuzzy Logic, Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition. This has made India a leader in these disciplines in international scenario. He founded the Machine Intelligence Unit in 1993, and the Center for Soft Computing Research: A National Facility (the first of its kind in the country) in 2004, both at the ISI. In the process he has created many renowned scientists out of his doctoral students.

He is a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1990. He was awarded Padma Shri in Science and Engineering on 5 April 2013 by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee in recognition of his work in machine intelligence. Provided by Wikipedia