Jaydip Sen Memorial Issue

Prof. Jaydip Sen (*12.12.1965 in Agartala, Tripura, † 30.11.2021) of the Department of Anthropology, North Bengal University (NBU), India, expired late last year. I had known Jaydip since my return to India from the UK in October, 1997.Not only was Jaydip a very close friend, he was also my academic collaborator. Besides co-authoring several research papers we had also jointly published edited books on various aspects of anthropometry. I had visited his department in various capacities as an external examiner, University Grants Commission (UGC) Visiting Fellow, etc. Similarly, he had also come to our Department at Vidyasagar University on several occasions, fulfilling different roles.Jaydip was born in Agartala, Tripura on 12th December 1965. He had early schooling at St. Edmund’s School, Shillong, Meghalaya for a few years and after that, in 1972, went to Delhi, and completed his primary education from St. Stephen’s School, Delhi. In 1975, he returned from Delhi to Shillong and completed his higher secondary education from St. Edmund’s School. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Sree Chaitanya College, Habra, West Bengal in 1987 and graduated from University of Calcutta with a M.Sc. degree in Advanced Physical Anthropology and Human Genetics in 1991. Jaydip obtained his Ph.D. (1998) from the Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University. He had worked under the supervision of Prof. A.B. Das Chaudhuri on trace elements and human hair. Based on his empirical research he had published numerous papers in prestigious journals like American Journal of Physical Anthropology, among others. Before joining NBU in 2008, he was a Faculty member (since 1996) at the Department of Anthropology, Bangabasi College, Kolkata. He became a Professor at NBU in 2011. During the later years at NBU, he worked on various aspects of anthropometry as well as forensic anthropology.Jaydip was the Editor of the journal South Asian Anthropologist (since 2015) besides being a member of Editorial Board of several peer reviewed indexed journals like Human Biology and Public Health, among others. He also acted as a Reviewer for many prestigious national and international journals. He was a member of several professional bodies like German Auxological Society, Nutrition Society of India (Hyderabad), and Indian Anthropological Society (Kolkata). He had completed two research projects funded by the UGC, Government of India. He has successfully supervised four Ph.D. theses. Besides holding various concurrent administrative posts at NBU, he had collaborated in research projects with the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh; Department of Forensic Medicine, Manipal University, Mangalore, and Department of Physiology, North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, West Bengal.This edited volume is dedicated to Jaydip. In this issue, the 10 papers cover a wide range of subjects including growth and the effect of body composition in Sri Lankan children (Wickramasinghe 2022); and the determinants of the resting metabolic rate in Indian children (Areekal et al. 2022). It is discussed what stunting tells us (Scheffler and Hermanussen 2022), followed by considerations upon nutrition, size, and tempo (Hermanussen and Scheffler 2022); and the association patterns between childhood obesity and body height during adolescence (Kirchengast and Hagmann 2022). It also addresses diverse topics like the toxic effect of lead on human health (Mandal et al. 2022); the assessment of thinness based on BMI and MUAC among the adult Jaunsari (Mukherjee et al. 2022); and the impact of television viewing and body fat distribution among the Bengali school children of Kolkata (Sarkar 2022). Childhood growth, current age, and waist circumference is discussed for its predictive power to estimate the biological reserve capacity, physical performance, and rapid aging in Bangladeshi women (Bogin 2022); and finally the evolution of growth charts in India (Khadilkar et al. 2022).It must be mentioned here that Jaydip was one of the foremost biological anthropologists in India who had made pioneering and significant contribution to the study of human variation. Unfortunately, his untimely death at an early age of 56 is a great loss to anthropology. He had an amiable personality who was always willing to help colleagues, research scholars and students. He will be missed. He is survived by his wife Gopa and daughter Upasana. I would like to sincerely thank the Editors and the Editorial Board of Human Biology and Public Health for taking this initiative to publish a Special Issue in the memory of Jaydip. May Jaydip’s soul Rest in Peace.