On Monday, Dr Ramgopal Rao, the outgoing director of IIT Delhi took to Facebook to write, "I am happy to inform you that Prof Rangan Banerjee from the Department of Energy Sciences & Engineering, IIT Bombay has been appointed as the next Director of IIT Delhi. Hearty congratulations." Rao, whose term as the director ended in April 2021 was on an extension.

So who exactly is Dr Banerjee? We will tell you here. A Forbes Marshall Chair Professor at IIT Bombay, he is an alumnus of the institute, from where he completed his BTech and PhD. He joined IIT Bombay as Visiting Assistant Professor in 1993 and was elevated to the post of an Assistant Professor the next year. Prior to that, he worked as a Research Associate in Tata Energy Research Institute, Delhi and Centre for Applied Systems Analysis in Development, Pune.

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According to the IIT Bombay website, Banerjee was a member of the TIFAC Technology Vision 2035 - Apex Committee and Chairman of the Energy Technology Theme. He was a Convening Lead Analyst for Industrial End Use Efficiency and a member of the executive committee for the Global Energy Assessment (2008-2011) coordinated by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was a Member of the International committee to review the UK's Energy Research Programme in 2010 (RCUK Review of Energy). He was a member of the Working Group on New and Renewable Energy for the Eleventh and Twelfth Five Year Plans and a member of the Planning Commission's Integrated Energy Policy. He has been involved in advising the city, state regulatory commission and energy agency, Planning commission, Niti Aayog, MNRE on energy issues and worked with several Indian and International industries.

He currently mentors 13 PhD candidates. He was appointed as the Head of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering in 2018.