Professor Somasundaran received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and his Bachelor of Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science. He was the first Director of the Langmuir Center for Colloids & Interfaces and Chairman of the Henry Krumb School and Chair of Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Material Science & Mineral Engineering.
He was inducted in l985 into the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinction that can be conferred to an engineer and later to the Chinese, Indian and Russian National Academies. In July 2009 he was conferred foreign membership of the "Balkan Academy of Science on Mineral Technologies" (BASMT). He is the recipient of the Antoine M. Gaudin Award (1982), the Robert H. Richards Award (l987), the Arthur F. Taggart Award for best paper (1987) of AIME, "Most Distinguished Achievement in Engineering" award from AINA among others. In addition, he was awarded the "Ellis Island Medal of Honor" in 1990, and the Engineering Foundation's 1992 Frank F. Aplan Award. Most recently he received the AIME Mineral Industry Education Award, 2006.