Professor Sashi Satpathy obtained his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1982, after receiving his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1977. He worked for four years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and a Scientific Staff Member at the Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart and then for two years as a Research Associate at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto. He joined the physics faculty at the University of Missouri, Columbia in 1987, where he is currently a Curators' Professor of Physics.

    Well known for a number of seminal contributions to the electronic theory of solids as well as to the photonic band structure, Professor Satpathy uses numerical and analytical techniques as well as interpretation of experiments to study contemporary problems in the electronic structure of solids. Recent examples are the studies of the perovskite oxide interfaces, 2DEG in the interface structures, colossal magneto-resistive manganites, C₆₀ materials, Verwey metal-insulator transition in magnetite, and photo-induced ferromagnetism in the dilute magnetic semiconductors.

    Professor Satpathy is a Fellow of the American Physical Society as well as of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a recipient of the Mercator Professorship Award of the German Science Foundation (2006). He is a Patron of the Orissa Physical Society (India) and a Life Member of the American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association, the APS, and the AAAS.