Professor Vinod K. Singh is the founder Director of IISER Bhopal, on lien from IIT Kanpur. He is member of Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister (SAC to PM). He is also a member of BoG, IIT Guwahati and academic and excecutive council of several Universities. He also held additional charge as a Director, SPA Bhopal and was Chairman, BoG, NITTTR Bhopal.

Professor Singh works in the area of enantioselective reactions and total synthesis. His group has designed several new chiral ligands and has achieved total synthesis of natural products using chiron approach. His contributions to chemistry are well recognized in the form of several awards and honors. He is the recipient of the S.S. Bhatnagar Prize in 2004 and the Swarnajayanti Fellowship in 1998. He is also fellow of several national academies.