Prof Chennupati Jagadish as its 20th president. Jagadish, a nanotechnology expert and distinguished professor at the Australian National University, is one of the world’s leading physicists.
He has helped develop semi-conductors used in LED lights and has designed some of the world’s smallest lasers. Jagadish arrived in Australia in 1990 to take up a position as a researcher, and will become the AAS’s first president of Indian heritage.
After completing his PhD at the University of Delhi, he received 300 rejection letters before landing his first role. In a statement, he said: “I never imagined when I came to Australia with a two-month-old baby and two-year contract thirty-one years ago, that one day I’d be elected a Fellow of the Academy.