Eluvathingal Devassy Jemmis

Eluvathingal Devassy Jemmis (born October 31, 1951) is a Professor of theoretical chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India He was also the Director of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram (IISERTVM) His primary area of research is applied theoretical chemistry with emphasis on structure, bonding and reactivity, across the periodic table of the elements Apart from many of his contributions to applied theoretical chemistry, an equivalent of the structural chemistry of carbon, as exemplified by the Huckel 4n+2 Rule, benzenoid aromatics and graphite, and tetrahedral carbon and diamond, is brought in the structural chemistry of boron by the Jemmis mno rules which relates polyhedral and macropolyhedral boranes to allotropes of boron and boronrich solids He has been awarded Padma Shri in Science and Engineering category (year 2014) by the Government of India
Jemmis is engaged in the study of structure and reactivity of molecules, clusters and solids using theoretical methods A constant attempt is made by his group to find common threads between problems of different areas, viz between organic and organometallic chemistry; amongst the chemistry of various main group elements; between polymorphs of elements and their compounds; etc His research group not only gets numbers as an answer to a problem, but also tries to find out why the numbers turn out the way they do, based on overlap of orbitals, perturbation theory and symmetry, and devise transferable models Significant results have been obtained in understanding the reactions of transition metal organometallics, week Hbond, electronic structure of threedimensional aromatic compounds, polyhedral boranes, carboranes, silaboranes, electron counting rules for polycondensation, and structure of boron allotropes The latter involved an extension of the Wades Rules for polyhedral boranes to macropolyhedral boranes and the Huckel 4n+2 Rule to three dimensions The Jemmis mno rules for polyhedral boranes have found a place in textbooks and are being taught in Inorganic Chemistry Courses in leading educational institutions around the world Just as the basic tenets of the structural chemistry of carbon has stood the test of time, and led to major developments in carbon, the edifice of the structural chemistry expounded by Jemmis has already begun to do so for boron Several of his predictions have been proved experimentally He has mentored 20 PhD students and several postdoctoral and students and research associates, and published about 200 research articles