Patel (PhD, Electr. Engg., Stanford, 1961) is Em. prof. of physics and astronomy, electrical engineering and chemistry, UC Los Angeles. University Distinguished Professor, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; He is also President and CEO of the Board, Pranalytica, Inc. In 1961, he joined Bell Laboratories where he managed all research in physics and materials science and engineering. In 1993 he joined UC Los Angeles as vice chancellor for research and assumed his present positions in 2000. He has received many scientific society prizes including the highest prizes of the IEEE (Medal of Honor) and the Optical Society of America (Ives Medal) and the Natl. Medal of Science awarded by the US President (1996). He was elected to the Natl. Acad. of Sciences, the American Acad. of Arts and Sciences and the Natl. Acad. of Engineering. In 2013, he was inducted into the Natl. Inventors Hall of Fame. He was pres., American Physical Society (1995) and Sigma Xi (1993-95).

Maji is a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India. He earned his PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in Kolkata (2002). His research focuses on the design and functionalization of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous organic polymers (POPs), of which he explores the applications in energy storage and conversion, and cost-effective adsorptive separation and purification of feedstocks. He developed MOFs and POPs for CO2 capture, and photo and electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to fuels and green H2 production by water splitting. His research also extends to metal-organic “soft” materials for catalysis and optoelectronics, and his achievements are well reflected in the more than 285 publications to his credit. Maji is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in chemical sciences (2019), the Scopus Young Scientist Award, and the Senior Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany). His accolades include the Bronze Medal from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Materials Research Society of India. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry.