JJ VITTAL received his BSc from the University of Madras in 1975, MSc from Madurai University in 1977 and PhD from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1982. After postdoctoral research at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, he managed the X-ray facility for a few years. He then moved to Singapore in 1997 where he is currently Professor in the Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore. He held a World Class University Chair Professorship at the Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, South Korea (2009-2013). His major research interests include design & synthesis of coordination polymers & metal-organic framework compounds, solid-state supramolecular structural transformations, solid state reactivity and photochemistry, single molecular precursor routes to various metal chalcogenides, oxides bulk materials, films and nanocrystals, and battery materials. JJ published more than 490 research papers, reviews and book chapters with ~17800 citations and an h-index of 67. He co-authored ‘Crystal Engineering – A Textbook’ with G.R. Desiraju and A. Ramanan. He also co-edited two books on crystal engineering with E.R.T. Tiekink. He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and Singapore National Institute of Chemistry. He is an editorial board members of several journals including Crystal Growth & Design and Scientific Reports. He won several awards including Outstanding Chemist Award (2014), CRISP Award (2013), Outstanding Research Award (2011) and Best Scientist Award (2007). JJ has been highlighted in Angewandte Author Profile (2014) and the Nature Chemistry Blog (2011). He is founder and Organizing Committee member of Singapore National Crystal Growing Challenge (1997-2014). He is an international committee member of Worldwide IUCr Crystal Growing Competition for School Children since 2014.