New Delhi: Dr Ajit Kumar Mohanty, who serves as Director of BARC, has been appointed as new Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment Dr Mohanty as Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission. According to an order issued from the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), he has been appointed to the post for a tenure up to the age of 66 years i.e. till October 10, 2025 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

With his new role, Dr Mohanty has succeeded KN Vyas. He has been serving as Director BARC since March 2019.

Mohanty worked in several areas of nuclear physics, covering collision energy from the sub-Coulomb barrier to the relativistic regime using the Pelletron accelerator at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), PHENIX and CMS experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States and CERN, Geneva.

Mohanty held several honorary positions in various organisations. He served the Indian Physics Association (IPA) as its general secretary and later, as its president. He was the spokesperson fort the India-CMS collaboration, director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, and director, Physics Group, BARC. He has twice been the CERN Scientific Associate, first during 2002-2004 and again during 2010-2011.

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