Patcha Ramachandra Rao was a metallurgist and administrator. He has the unique distinction of being the only Vice-Chancellor of the Banaras Hindu University who was also a student and faculty at that institution. From 1992 to 2002, Rao was the Director of the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur.
Rao was born to S. R. Narayanaswamy Naidu and Laxmi Bai , in the Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. He is nephew of Narla Tata Rao, chairman of APSEB. Rao graduated with a master’s degree in Physics from the Osmania University . Thereafter, in 1963, Rao graduated from the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, with a B.E. degree in Metallurgy. He enrolled in the doctoral program at the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at B.H.U, Varanasi. Rao’s pioneering doctoral dissertation in Rapid Solidification laid the foundation for the research in this area in India.[citation needed] He obtained his MSc in 1965 and PhD in 1968.
From 2007 till the end, Rao was a Raja Ramanna Fellow at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, in Hyderabad.