R. R. Nair is a Professor of Materials Physics and holds a prestigious Royal Society Fellowship. His awards include a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, IUPAP Young Scientist Award (2014) from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the Moseley Medal and Prize (2015) from the Institute of Physics, Lee Hsun Lecture Award on Materials Science (2018), Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Creativity prize (2018) from the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW). He has also selected as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2016 and 2017 by Thomson Reuters. The main scope of his research is the science and applications of two-dimensional (2D) crystals and their modifications. His current research projects are studying molecular properties at extreme confinement, 2D materials functionalization, developing novel 2D materials based membranes for water filtration, nanofiltration, gas separation, barrier coating and proton conducting membranes for fuel cells.