Ashish Kishore Lele (born 1967) is an Indian chemical engineer, rheologist and the Director of the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. He is known for his researches on micro and mesostructure of polymers and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 2006. He received the Infosys Prize in 2012. Early life Lele, born on 3 April 1967 in Maharashtra, graduated in chemical engineering from UDCT in Mumbai in 1988. He moved to the US for his doctoral studies at the University of Delaware from where he secured a PhD in 1993, simultaneously working as a research assistant at the university. Career Returning to India, he started his career by joining National Chemical Laboratory in 1993 as a scientist. While working at NCL, he took a sabbatical to complete his postdoctoral studies at Cambridge University from July 2000 to December 2001. Subsequently, he resumed his service at NCL where he later held the chair of the department of Polymer Science and Engineering. In 2018, he opted to take the role of Senior Vice President (R & R&D) at Reliance Industries Ltd. On 1 April 2021, he became the thirteenth Director of the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory Pune. He has also served as a visiting professor at Institut des sciences de l'ingénieur de Toulon et du Var (Institute of Engineering Sciences of Toulon and the Var – ISITV). Research Bulk of Lele's researches have been based on the theoretical and experimental studies of micro and mesostructure of polymers and his studies widened the understanding of their macroscopic dynamical and equilibrium properties. He was the first scientist to elucidate the amoeba-like dynamics of ring polymers and proposed the mean field theoretical framework of specific weak molecular interactions in gels for the first time. He developed tailored molecules of stimuli responsive smart hydrogels and explained the anomalous rheological behaviour of complex fluids. He has documented his researches by way of several articles; Google Scholar and ResearchGate, online article repositories of scientific articles, have listed many of them. He holds a number of patents for the processes he has developed. Lele is a director