Kannur: Chancellor Arif Mohammed Khan will be appointing Sivasankaran Bijoy Nandan, Professor and Dean of CUSAT's School of Marine Sciences, as the Vice Chancellor in charge of Kannur University.
The posting comes a day after the Supreme Court quashed the reappointment of Prof Gopinath Ravindran as the Vice Chancellor because Chancellor Khan did not use his discretion and went by the state government's recommendation.
On Friday, Raj Bhavan sent a WhatsApp message to reporters saying: CUSAT marine biology Prof Bijoy Nandan to be given charge as VC of Kannur University. "Order to be issued before noon," the message said.
Prof Nandan is a faculty member of the Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology & Biochemistry at Cochin University of Science & Technology (CUSAT) and has 29 years of academic, administration, research, and teaching experience, according to his LinkedIn profile.
His areas of interest are marine biology and pollution, climate science, and polar biology.
He is a recipient of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award (ICAR) for outstanding doctoral thesis in India (1993), UNESCO Fellowship (2008), Recognition award of Zoological Survey of India (2008), US Fulbright Fellowship (2013-2014), and UGC-BSR Mid-Career Award (2021). Completed or ongoing 37 research & consultancy projects as PI funded by national and international agencies. A new species of deepsea wood-boring mollusc Xylophaga nandani & estuarine crab Aniptumnus bijoyi was named in his honour.
