Komaravolu Chandrasekharan was a professor at ETH Zurich and a founding faculty member of School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is known for his work in number theory and summability.
Komaravolu Chandrasekharan was born and attended a District Board School in Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, and then the High School at Bapatla, also in Guntur. He then obtained his M.A in Mathematics from the Presidency College, Chennai and was a Research Scholar in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Madras during the years 1940-1943. During 1943-46 he was a part-time Lecturer at the Presidency College and obtained his Ph.D during this time under Ananda Rau, who was with Ramanujan in Cambridge.

Chandrasekharan then went to the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA. In 1949, while he was in Princeton, he was invited by Homi Bhabha to join the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. As an extraordinarily gifted organizer and administrator of science, he transformed the fledgling School of Mathematics of TIFR into a center of excellence respected all over the world. He initiated a very successful program of recruitment and training of Research Scholars at TIFR. The program continues to this day along the same lines that he set down. He used his contacts with the leading mathematicians of the world, persuading many of them to visit TIFR and deliver courses over periods of two months and more. The lecture notes prepared out of these lectures and published by TIFR enjoy a great reputation in the world mathematics community to this day. During 1955-61, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union. He served as the Secretary of IMU during 1961-66 and as President during the years 1971-74. His initiatives over a long period of 24 years on this Committee were numerous and valued greatly. He served as the Vice President of the International Council of Scientific Unions during 1963-66 and as its Secretary General during 1966-70. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, Government of India during 1961-66. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1959, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 1963 and the Ramanujan Medal in 1966.

In 1965 he left the TIFR and moved to the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, in Zürich. He worked in the fields of number theory and summability.