Associate Vice-President Research Sushanta Mitra named AAAS Fellow

York University’s Associate Vice-President Research Sushanta Mitra has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Mitra was given the honour in recognition of his contributions to the field of micro-nanofluidics, particularly for development of tools and techniques for energy exploration, environment monitoring and applications in bio-systems.

Sushanta Mitra
Sushanta Mitra

“Warmest congratulations to Professor Mitra for this exceptional achievement,” said York’s Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché.  “As a leading scholar in his field, Sushanta has made significant contributions to advancing innovative research and training in this discipline and epitomizes York’s commitment to research excellence.”

Mitra’s research applications tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems, including the development of tools and techniques for efficiently extracting oil and gas from reservoir rocks, bio-converting coal into methane (bio-energy pathways), increasing water monitoring efficiency and affordability (environment monitoring), and detecting vector borne, bacterial and cardiac diseases (health applications).

He credits a number of students (undergrads and graduate), postdoctoral fellows, research associates, lab technicians that were part of the Micro & Nano-scale Transport Lab spanning three universities – IIT Bombay (India), University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) and York University, as well as scientific collaborators across Asia, Europe and North America who have contributed to his innovative research program for helping to make this achievement possible.

“Everyone at Lassonde is exceptionally proud to see Professor Mitra honoured with this international accolade. He is an outstanding academic with an enduring commitment to impactful research to benefit our society and our planet,” said Janusz Kozinski, founding dean of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University.

For his contributions in science and engineering, Mitra has already been elected as a Fellow of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME), Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

New AAAS Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering) rosette pin on Feb. 13, 2016 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

This year’s AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on Nov. 27.

Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honour bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. Each year the Council elects members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.

The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the flag-ship journal, Science AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 254 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.