Although he lost both his parents at a very tender age, and had to struggle through life, Professor Kumar never allowed adversaries to obstruct his goals in life. He was not only the topper, and hence the gold medallist, in both matriculation and higher secondary examinations from U.P. board of education, but later on he was also the gold medallist in his B.Sc examination under Agra University in UP.
Being an extremely brilliant, humble and well-mannered teacher, Professor Kumar was immensely liked by all his students. He was very meticulous and sincere in his teaching and left no stone unturned when it came to explaining ideas to his students. On the research front, he was an exemplary figure. His hard-working nature and tenacity were something to admire and learn from. Eighteen students already got PhD degree with his guidance and about six students were continuing their work with him. In his own research lab, he knew how to inspire with his original scientific temper and keep his research students engaged in work. He was also instrumental in setting up some of the other key experimental infrastructure of the Department of Physics, especially related to material science and nanoscience research and teaching.
Professor Kumar’s work on fuel cell research, Ionics, development of nano-materials, conducting polymers, ion irradiation of nano-materials, etc., is well known in the scientific circle. His monumental collection of research papers in highly prestigious peer reviewed national and international journals, which is more than 160 in number, stands testimony to his efforts. Nobody can ever forget his contribution towards development efforts of Polymer redox supercapacitors, Phosphoric acid and molten carbonate electrolytes based H2-O2 fuel cells, lithium based gel polymer electrolytes, conducting polymer based nanocomposites for actuators, polymer-silicate nanocomposite electrolytes for lithium ion rechargeable batteries, biologically functionalized conducting polymer nanostructures for biosensing applications, recent research in graphene based nanocomposites, etc. His collaborations with Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) in New Delhi, Queen’s University in Belfast, UK, Centre for Mathematical Modelling & Simulation (CMMACS) in Bangalore, yielded benefits for the entire research community and also for Tezpur University in particular. His versatility was such that he could also guide research in earth sciences too, parallelly with his research on material science. A number of his PhD students used to work with Global Positioning System (GPS) based units for studying kinematics and crustal deformation of north-eastern India for correlation with seismic activity.