Prof. Gadgil is Affiliate (former Faculty Senior Scientist and former Director of the Energy and Environmental Technologies Division) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor of the Graduate School, at University of California Berkeley. Prof. Gadgil specializes in innovative application of engineering, including inventions, for serious problems of low-income communities and people. His work experience includes technical, economic, and policy research on energy efficiency and its implementation, particularly in developing countries. His inventions such as the Berkeley-Darfur Stove (which is being deployed in Darfur by the nonprofit Potential Energy) and UV Waterworks, a technology to inexpensively disinfect drinking water, have been used extensively in developing countries. The 2023 open-access Springer graduate level textbook “Introduction to Development Engineering”, co-edited and co-authored by him, has been downloaded more than 280,000 times as of August 2025.

Profile
Prof. Gadgil has won numerous awards and honors for his inventions, including the Heinz Award for the Environment (2009), Sustainability Pioneer Award from SAG/SAM of Zurich (2010), The European Inventor Award, and the NCIIA Lifetime Award for teaching innovation (both 2011), and the Zayed Future Energy Prize, and the Lemelson-MIT Global Innovation Award (both 2012). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013. In 2014, Prof. Gadgil was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society also conferred upon Prof. Gadgil its Leo Szilard Lectureship Award. Prof. Gadgil holds a Ph.D. in Physics from University of California, Berkeley.

He is the Laureate of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest recognition in the US, with the medal presented to him in 2023 by the US President in the White House. IITK conferred upon Prof. Ashok Gadgil the Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2020.

Awards and Honors

• American Innovator Award, by the Bayh-Dole Coalition for large positive societal impact of inventions that were taken to scale for making the world better (2024).
• Bharat Asmita Vigyaan-Tantragyaan Shreshtha National Award, roughly translates as National Distinction Award of India for Outstanding Expertise in Science and Technology, by the MIT-WPU University of Pune, India (2024)
• Inducted into the National Academy of Inventors. This is the youngest of the four National Academies, each established by an act of the US Congress (2023)
• The National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The highest national recognition in the US for technology innovation, awarded personally by the President in a ceremony at the White House (2023)
• The Berkeley Lab Prize. LBNL Director’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2023)
• R&D Leader of the Year, 2023. Inaugural award from the R&D100 magazine. Selected by an independent distinguished international jury from all R&D fields (2023).
• LBNL Director's Award for Exceptional Achievement in Societal Impact. for “dedication to developing and optimizing an infant warmer technology that will save millions of low birthweight infants from dying of hypothermia” (2022).
• Inaugural Laureate of the Zuckerberg Water Prize for “Outstanding leadership, vision, innovation, and lasting global impact in the field of Water”. by Ben Gurion University of the Negev (2022).