Pucadyil Ittoop John

Who is Pucadyil Ittoop John?

Professor P. I. John is a prominent Indian plasma physicist. He occupies the Meghnad Saha Chair in Plasma Science and Technology at the Institute for Plasma Research.

After completing his Ph.D. at Aligarh Muslim University, John joined the Physical Research Laboratory, where he established an experimental plasma physics program in 1972. He was the Chairman of the Plasma Physics Group at PRL until 1982.

John was one of the leading members of the group who initiated India’s Fusion Research Program, also known as Plasma Physics Program, which developed into the Institute for Plasma Research. He supervised the erection and commissioning of the first indigenously built Indian Tokamak, Aditya, and was also the project leader of its pulsed power systems.

In the early 1990s, he started a plasma processing program at the Institute for Plasma Research to facilitate plasma based industrial applications, which grew into the Facilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technologies at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. He was the head of FCIPT for many years, and is still a member of its governing Council.

In 2002-03, John served as Head of the Physics Section of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He was also part of the Indian Task Force for ITER negotiations, before India joined the ITER as a full member. Currently, also, he is chairman of the Board Of Research in Fusion Science & Technology, which is involved with the National Fusion Program in India. Through the National Fusion Program, John was reported in 2010 to be "currently working on an administrative framework for funding universities and educational institutions in basic research, and human resource development in fusion science and technology."