About the Faculty
Dr. Prasad Naik joined BITS-Pilani, Goa Campus on 15th July 2019 as a "Visiting Professor". Before joining BITS, Dr. Naik worked with the Department of Atomic Energy for 37 years as a scientist.
Dr. Naik who was born and brought up in Goa (Nerul), got his B.Sc. (Physics, Mathematics) degree from Bombay University in 1979 (First rank), and M.Sc. (Physics) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay in 1981 (First rank). He graduated from 25th batch of BARC Training School (Physics), Mumbai in 1982 (Overall First rank among all disciplines) and joined Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. Along with his other scientific work, he completed his Ph.D. work there and received Ph.D. degree from Bombay University for his thesis on “X-ray spectroscopy of highly charged ions from laser-produced plasmas”.
Dr. Naik was transferred to the upcoming Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore in May 1991 (renamed as Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in 2005). There he worked on building up a high power laser facility and carried out several scientific investigations in laser-produced plasmas. He also built the first Terawatt laser in India and also the first X-ray laser (46.9 nm) in India. He also initiated work on high order harmonic generation with ultrashort pulse lasers, acceleration of electrons to sub-GeV energy using laser beam, and accelerating protons with light to MeV energy. He has 190 research publications in peer reviewed journals, 92 papers presented in international conferences, 283 papers in national conferences, and has delivered 44 invited talks in national and international conferences.
Dr. Naik was a faculty member of the Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), Mumbai (a deemed to be university, with NAAC A grade) since its inception in 2005. Several students did their M.Sc., M.Tech., and Ph.D. work under his guidance. He was actively involved in nurturing Ph.D. programme at RRCAT. He taught in BARC Training School, Indore for nine consecutive years and got consistently very good rating by the students. He was conferred “Distinguished Faculty Award” by HBNI in 2015. He also served as a member of the Academic Council of the HBNI from 2016-19. He was "NSERC Canada International Fellow" from 1993-95.
Prof. Naik was also the Chairman of the Project Management Board of the LIGO-India Project (a mega-project on Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory coming up at Aundha, Hingoli in Maharashtra), from Sept. 2016 to March 2019.
Dr. Naik has received several awards for his R&D efforts. He is a “Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India”.
Dr. Naik took over as the Director RRCAT in Sept. 2016 and superannuated in March 2019 as Director, RRCAT, Distinguished Scientist (Level 16 post), and Senior Professor of HBNI.
At BITS-Pilani, Goa Campus, he has been teaching two specialized courses: 1) Laser Science and Technology (PHY F346), a general elective course taken by engineering and physics students, and 2) Topics in Nonlinear Optics (PHY F433), a physics elective. Apart from these two courses, he has taken active part in the three lab courses offered by the Physics Department. He has modified and updated the manuals of all experiments in these labs.
Apart from teaching, he has been taking active part in faculty selection at the campus as well as at Goa University and few other Universities in India, and PhD student selection in the Physics Department. He has served in internal award committees, internal startup grant committee etc. at the Goa campus. He was also a member of the committee set up by Goa Government for advice on mode of implementation of NEP at higher level (college and University) in Goa.
An Institute of Eminence
