text: Bhaskar Dattatraya Kulkarni (5 May 1949 &ndash; 14 January 2019), popularly known as B. D. among his friends and colleagues, was an Indian chemical reaction engineer and a Distinguished Scientist of Chemical Engineering and Process Development at the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. An INSA Senior Scientist and a J. C. Bose fellow, he was known for his work on fluidized bed reactors and chemical reactors. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, The World Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1988.