Get to Know Chaitanya and Anu Narula, Scientist, Professor, Servant Leaders, and True Rotary Family
Saturday, April 6, 2024
By Barbara Myers Myers Mason APR

Many of you may have seen the Narula name in our District communication, but get to know more about the family that has made an impact inside and outside of Rotary. Learn about the legacy Chaitanya is making through environmental science and the impact of Anu in making sure Rotary is a family affair.  

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Since Rotary’s April focus is the environment, it is fitting to feature a highly educated Rotarian couple, members of the Rotary Club of Canton, who crossed the globe to the United States from India in pursuit of their American Dream of eminent education, along with careers that helped foster environmental and humanities research standards.

Introducing Chaitanya Narula, Ph.D.

Rotarian Chaitanya Narula, Ph.D., who is married to Rotarian Anu Narula, Ph.D., grew up in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, India, where he attended public schools. He migrated to the United States after receiving a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and a doctoral degree in Chemistry from the University of Rajasthan, India.  While working in America, he earned an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Chaitanya’s credentials allowed him to train with Richard F. Heck, a 2010 Nobel Prize winner, as a post-doctoral associate at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware. Chaitanya was then awarded the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and worked as a Humboldt fellow at the University of Munich in Germany. After returning to the U.S., Chaitanya was a Research Associate at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  

In 1988, Chaitanya joined Ford Motor Company where he focused on Materials Chemistry for the automotive industry. He took a sabbatical to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and to write and publish a book entitled Ceramic Precursor Technology. After returning to Ford, Chaitanya focused his research on new catalyst technologies to treat emissions, which facilitated the auto company in meeting stringent vehicle emission standards. His work in emission treatment technologies resulted in several awards, patents and publications.

In 2002, Chaitanya accepted a Distinguished Research and Development staff position at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At Oak Ridge, he started the Environmental Remediation Research Program, serving as a Group Leader for several years. The team researched, developed and introduced new emission treatment technologies. Then, in 2010, he began a project in collaboration with colleagues at the Bio-Energy Science Center at Oak Ridge to convert bio-ethanol to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. This technology has been licensed to Vertimass, LLC, a company which is in the process of taking this biofuel to the marketplace.

Chaitanya explains that this sustainable fuel is carbon-neutral because the carbon comes from bio-mass which is captured in the atmosphere. Thus, the fuel, unlike fossil fuels, does not add new CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere. Chaitanya’s group showed that it is possible to produce sustainable fuel at about the same cost as bio-mass derived from ethanol, which is currently added to gasoline. For this work which could reduce the use of fossil fuels, Chaitanya received an “Inventor of the Year” award from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2014.

After accepting a joint appointment as a Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Bredesen Center, a venture between the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Chaitanya trained graduate students, who, along with post-doctoral scholars, now work for Fortune 500 companies and national laboratories. Over his career, Chaitanya has been awarded 52 U.S. patents and several international patents. He retired as a Distinguished Research Scientist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2017.

Introducing Anu Narula, Ph.D.

Chaitanya reflects that his move to the South brought him good fortune. After being introduced to Anu by his uncle, Chaitanya and Anu married in City Beautiful, Chandigarh, in 2003 and made their home in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Anu taught English as an Adjunct Faculty at the University of Tennessee for five years. Also highly educated, Anu holds a pair of gold medals for standing first in the order of merit in the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy programs in English Literature from the University of Rajasthan in India in 1983 and 1990 respectively. In 1995, she received the Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship to visit Yale University to conduct research towards her Ph.D. in American Literature, earned in 1997.

Anu started her career as a lecturer in English at the Government Girls College in Kota, Rajasthan, India, and taught English for 14 years at various government colleges at the grassroots level throughout Rajasthan. She worked as an Associate Professor at Panjab University in Chandigarh, in English, American and multi-ethnic literatures for five years.

While at Panjab University, Anu supervised the Ph.D. dissertations of two scholars in Film Studies and African American literature and was part of several committees that took part in decision-making for curriculum design and policy matters. As a part of her teaching career spanning almost 20 years in India, Anu played a role in empowering thousands of students by providing them the educational pathway to build confidence, versatile careers and financial independence.

Anu is completing her 14^th year of service in Rotary International. She first became a Rotarian at the Rotary Club of Kota in District 3054 in 1995, where she worked alongside her parents in health and literacy camps for three years. From 1998 until 2003, she served with the Rotary Club of Chandigarh in District 3080 in a variety of service projects, including polio vaccination camps. After migrating to the United States, Anu renewed her Rotary membership in 2018 in District 6910. Along with her husband and twin sons, she participated in multiple community projects as a member of the Rotary Club of Johns Creek for close to five years. She served as the Youth Services Chair and in several projects focused on peace, food insecurity, women and children experiencing homelessness, and cancer survivors and families battling cancer through Daffodils for Hope.


As a member of the Rotary Club of Canton since February 2023, Anu is serving as the International Service Chair. She also serves as a content writer on the District Public Image Team and has written more than 35 stories for the District 6910 newsletters in the past three years. She is a member of the Board of Directors and Secretary of the Georgia Rotary Districts Character Education program. Also on the district level, Anu serves as the District Advocate for Girls’ Empowerment and as the District’s Literacy Chair. She has led efforts to garner funding support for a Digital Interactive Classroom Project which will empower around 30,000 students across schools in Panama through digital literacy and technology, along with training about 3,000 teachers.

During the COVID 19 pandemic, Anu took the initiative to invite Past Rotary International President Raja Saboo to present on the topic of “Rotary and Peace.” Anu was a part of the organizational committee for this district level virtual event hosted by the Rotary Club of Johns Creek in celebration of Rotary’s birthday on February 23, 2021. Very recently, Anu took the initiative to get involved in the efforts of the District 6910 Foundation Committee to help with the allocation of a Rotary Foundation Disaster Grant to the Rotary Club of Dnipro Novyi in District 2232 in Ukraine. This grant will help the children in that region use books, laptops and school supplies in their pursuit of education and literacy. Anu is also an actively engaged member of several Rotary Action Groups.


Aside from Rotary, Anu has served in key leadership positions in the Rajasthan Association of Georgia, a cultural organization that organizes Diwali celebrations, family picnics, community service projects and other events each year.

Building Bridges between Rotary and the Indian American Community

Anu strives to promote peace and goodwill by building bridges between Rotary and members of the Indian American community. She felt grateful for the opportunity to invite members of the community to participate in a dialogue for cultural harmony as part of the planning committee for the International Day of Peace hosted by the Rotary Club of Gwinnett in 2021 and 2022. Anu said, “I enjoy building bridges, metaphorically speaking, to bring people together from different ends of the spectrum in the diverse communities of Atlanta.”

Anu enjoys cooking, writing, running, music, dancing to Bollywood music, traveling, volunteering at her children’s school, spending time with family and Mother Nature. She has published several articles in academic journals and newspapers in India, in addition to publishing a poetic memoir, “Dancing Daffodils,” to give a message of “hope and fortitude” to cancer survivors. She has donated royalties to the Rotary Foundation and has been honored to be named a Paul Harris Fellow, and a member of the Paul Harris Society and the Polio Plus Society. In addition, she is a designated Benefactor for the Rotary Foundation.



In keeping with her belief that Rotary is “a family enterprise,” Anu motivated her husband to join Rotary in 2021. She also encourages her children to be involved in Rotary service projects. The family has attended Rotary International conventions in Houston, Texas, and Melbourne, Australia, in addition to district conferences in Greenville, South Carolina, where she received a district service award, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she had the honor of making a presentation on “Education as a Tool of Girls’ Empowerment.” A lifelong learner, Anu is a Rotary Leadership Institute graduate, and has recently earned a certificate from the Institute of Economics and Peace as an IEP Peace Ambassador.

The role that Anu enjoys most is being a homemaker and a mother to her 12-year-old sons, Krishna and Rishi, whom she believes are “twin miracles.”  “Motherhood is just like being a Rotarian,” Anu said, “as both feel like  divine callings.” Known for investing her heart, soul, talent and passion in her endeavors, she said both roles give her life “a sense of wholesome purpose and fulfillment.”

Anu is grateful to her parents, teachers, students, friends and Rotary role models for shaping her value system in life. “Angels have touched my life at critical junctures,” she said, “and I am grateful for the blend of faith in God Almighty and the abiding value of science as the catalyst of joy in our lives.”

Following Chaitanya’s retirement in 2017, the family moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, where Chaitanya is a “Super Dad,” according to his wife. He enjoys accompanying his sons to soccer practice and music lessons and is known as an authority of sorts on sci-fi, westerns, and Star Wars movies.  Chaitanya has been an avid bicyclist, flew an airplane once (with an instructor), and drove cross-country from Ann Arbor to Pasadena to spend a summer at the California Institute of Technology as a visiting faculty. 

A Paul Harris Fellow, Chaitanya believes Rotary provides opportunities to serve and make a difference in peoples’ lives. He serves as a liaison between the Rotary Club of Canton and the Interact Club at Sequoya High School in Canton. Fittingly, he shares his talents as a member of the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group and served as the District Coordinator last year.