Kalya Jagannath Rao

[8] The same year, he joined National College, Bangalore as a lecturer at their chemistry department and worked there until 1964 before enrolling at IIT Kanpur for his doctoral studies under the guidance of renowned chemist, C. N. R. Rao, a Bharat Ratna laureate.

Returning to India in 1972, he joined National Aerospace Laboratories where he worked until 1978 when he became associated with the Indian Institute of Science as a professor at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit.

He worked at the Unit until his superannuation and post-retirement, serves as an Emeritus professor and Ramanna Senior fellow there.

Rao has been a part of several research groups; he collaborated with V. C. Veeranna Gowda and C. Narayana Reddy of Bangalore University for his studies of glasses and ceramics, with S. A. Shivashankar of Indian Institute of Science for studies of zinc oxide nanostructures and with A. Naik of Kuvempu University for investigating nanomaterials.

He served as the chair of the Materials Research Centre of IISc during 1984–91 and headed the Division of Chemical Sciences from 1992 to 1997.