Swadhin K. Mandal is currently a professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata. He earned his doctoral degree under the guidance of Prof. S. S. Krishnamurthy at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Following this, he pursued postdoctoral research with Prof. Robert C. Haddon in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Riverside, USA, and later as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow with Prof. Herbert W. Roesky at the University of Göttingen, Germany.
His research focuses on harnessing p-electrons for innovative organic transformations. Notably, his group has developed C-C and C-N cross-coupling reactions based on redox processes involving p-electrons, bypassing the need for d-electrons from transition metals. Additionally, his group has employed reactive main-group species for catalytic CO₂ reduction and functionalization, enabling the production of valuable products without relying on transition metal catalysts.
Prof. Mandal serves (or has served) as an International Editorial Advisory Member for Organometallics, Inorganic Chemistry, and Chemical Science. His achievements have earned him prestigious awards, including the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2020) from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences (2018). He has also been recognized with the SERB Distinguished Investigator Award and is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences.
He has held visiting professorships at several esteemed institutions, including IIT Bombay, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA, and Paul Sabatier University, France.