Dr. Vasudev Kalkunte Aatre is an Indian Scientist and former head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India's premier Defence R&D Organization. In that capacity, he also served as the Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister (Raksha Mantri). He was born in 1939 in Bangalore, India. He completed his BE in Electrical engineering from the University of Mysore in 1961 and a Master's Degree from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in 1963.He was awarded a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 1967. Thereafter, he worked as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada, and worked till 1980. He was a Visiting Professor at IISc till 1977. Dr. Aatre was awarded the Padma Bhushan award in 2000 by the then President K. R. Narayanan. He was bestowed with Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian award in 2016.