Anand K Singh Personal email – anandsingh88@gmail.com Cell 214-957-5607 Dallas Texas 

My Association with Prof. ON Srivastava ( Guruji) 

It is hard to imagine about a huge loss that resulted on 24th April 2021 due to the premature demise of an individual who had impacted the scientific community, organizations, his students, colleagues, friends, and family significantly. I will try to detail briefly about this individual who was my teacher, mentor, and Ph. D. thesis advisor Professor O. N. Srivastava. I had opportunity to work with him after completing my M. Sc. (Physics) degree at the end of 1974 and enrolled under him as a Ph. D. student in January 1975. He was popular as “Guru Ji” among his Ph. D. and M. Sc. Students so I will be using Guru Ji for his name in this note. 

I still remember very well about my first direct interaction with Guru Ji to seek his advice regarding enrolling as a Ph. D. student under him in solid state physics. He was very busy at that time and did not give me any direct answer. I already had taken few advanced solid state physics classes in my M. Sc. final year, so I was very interested and inclined to choose him as my Ph. D. advisor. Next time when I approached him in his office, he remembered me very well that I came earlier and needed his advice for higher studies. Guru Ji explained me that pursuing for a Ph.D. degree will require very hard work, time and patience. I told him that I am ready for it. Guru Ji smiled, advised about the paperwork and provided Dr. B. M. S. Bist as my mentor. During my Ph. D. period, I found him taking total involvement of his students in research work and he himself demonstrated intense energy and vitality in performing his Teaching as well as Research activities that required staying quite late every day in his office/Lab and this was an example for us. I have never seen such a talented, intelligent, and hardworking scientist/professor. He was dedicated to the research in addition to teaching to such an extent that he used to be on the forefront of the advanced research topics. He covered most of the current and advanced research topics that included Quasicrystal (five-fold symmetry) Materials, Nano Materials, Materials for Hydrogen Energy, Superconductivity, and many others. Through his intelligence, hard work and collaborations, he established a world class laboratory to cover materials science/solid state physics research work and brought BHU’s Physics department to world fame and contributed towards recognizing BHU Physics Department and making Institute of Physics. I notice that he used to care and help his students to such an extent that their research work and future do not suffer and remain on sound footing. I also remember how he filled my confidence for preparation prior to Ph. D. viva/seminar through his advice encouragement.  I received a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University USA after completing my Ph. D. and Guru Ji provided full financial support as well as challenges faced in abroad prior travel to USA.  Such a personal level support was from Guru Ji for each student. After moving to USA, I was in regular contact with Guruji. He always gave me valuable advice. We always discussed advanced topics of research whenever we met/talked.

Finally, I consider Guru Ji as the originator/father of hydrogen energy in India—and many other materials science programs based on his contributions and research work. Based on his contributions and research work there are several prestigious awards and recognitions to his name that also include Padma Shri Award.  I am very proud to be his students. In my opinion, the scientific community and BHU owe to Professor O. N. Srivastava and can be only fulfilled by naming the world class lab that he created should be named to his name “Professor O. N. Srivastava Laboratory for Advanced Materials Research”.