Prof. Lakshminarayan Hazra obtained his M. Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Calcutta, and after several years in M/s National Instruments Limited, Calcutta and the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (C.S.I.O.), Chandigarh, he joined the faculty of the Department of Applied Physics of the University of Calcutta in 1979.
Early in his career, he devised new techniques for imaging in telescopes working in turbulent medium, and in collaboration with Prof. H. H. Hopkins of University of Reading, U.K., he designed a remote access zoom objective for monitoring open-heart surgery in 1983. Prof. Hazra developed new methods for structural design of optical systems, as well as developed the optical design software 'Ray Analysis Package' (RAP). He pioneered the use of Walsh functions in image analysis and synthesis, and, in association with researchers at Laval University in Canada, investigated the exact surface relief profile of diffractive lenses in the non-paraxial region.
He took the lead in establishing the Department of Applied Optics and Photonics at the University of Calcutta in 2005. He is currently associated as an Emeritus Professor with this department. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Optical Society of India (OSI) where he was General Secretary for more than 15 years, and currently he is the Editor-in-chief of the OSI 'Journal of Optics' published in collaboration with M/s Springer. He is a fellow of both the Optical Society of America and the SPIE. Prof. Hazra is the representative for the Indian Territory in the International Commission for Optics. He was conferred the 'Eminent Teacher Award' by the University of Calcutta in 2019.
Prof. Hazra has published more than 100 papers in archival journals, and a few research monographs. He has delivered more than 250 invited talks on his research in different parts of India and in many countries of the world, namely U.S.A., U.K., Canada, Japan, Austria, Poland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Slovenia, Malaysia, China, Finland, Russia etc. He provides consultancy services to industry on optical instrumentation, and regularly works for promotion of applied and modern optics. He was a Nuffield Foundation Fellow (1982-83) in U.K., a visiting Professor (1991 - 97) at the Centre d'Optique, Photonique et Lasers, Laval University in Quebec, Canada, an Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professor in the OpSciTech program of the European Commission in 2008, and a Visiting (Invitation) Professor of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science in 2012.
His areas of research interest are Optical System Design, Zoom Lens Design, Diffractive Optics, Optical and Ophthalmic Instrumentation, Aberration Theory, Theories of Image Formation, Super Resolution, Global Optimization, Laser Beam Shaping, Optical Tweezers, Fractal Optics, Metamaterials, Pareto-optimality and Solar Concentrator Optics. He has undertaken major research projects (funded by government agencies and private industries) on many of these topics. He has supervised the theses of more than twenty doctoral students, and more than a hundred Bachelor and Master level students in India and abroad.
