Amit Chakrabarti
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Following a national search, Amit Chakrabarti was named dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Kansas State University's largest college, in April 2017. He had served as interim dean of the college since February 2016.
As dean, Chakrabarti serves as the college's chief academic and administrative officer. He provides leadership and support to all undergraduate and graduate academic degree programs in the college; oversees its continued excellence and growth in research; and works productively with faculty, department heads, deans and administrators on interdisciplinary and collaborative projects. Other duties include maintaining alumni and donor relations, fundraising and more. He will report directly to the provost and serve on the Academic Council of Deans.
Chakrabarti previously served as head of the physics department and the William and Joan Porter chair in physics.
Chakrabarti is a theoretical physicist with interests in soft matter and statistical physics. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and mentored eight doctoral students and several postdoctoral fellows.
He has worked on diverse soft-matter systems, including liquid mixtures, polymers, liquid crystals, aerosols, colloids, nanoparticles and most recently, self-assembly of proteins. He focuses on how particles in a dispersed phase come together and form aggregates. His individual and collaborative research projects have received extramural funding from agencies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Chakrabarti has collaborated with several K-State faculty on projects that have been funded by the K-State Targeted Excellence Program, NASA and the National Science Foundation.
One of his research collaborations is with Jim Gunton, a professor at Lehigh University, to understand how insulin crystals form from aqueous solutions. Insulin is an important drug in the treatment of diabetes; understanding the process of microcrystal formation is important for developing new methods of drug delivery. Chakrabarti also is working on fiber formation in sickle cell hemoglobin, the mutant form of hemoglobin responsible for sickle cell anemia.
A recipient of K-State's 2009 Commerce Bank Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award, which recognizes quality research and advising of graduate students, Chakrabarti also received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2002, and is a two-time winner of the Stamey Award for Teaching Excellence from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Chakrabarti has a doctorate in physics from the University of Minnesota, and master's and bachelor's degrees in physics from the University of Calcutta, India. He joined K-State in 1990 and was named a full professor in 2000. He served as interim head of the department of physics in 2006-2007.
He can be reached at 785-532-6900 or amitc@k-state.edu.
