K Venkatesan is Professor at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He is a co-discoverer of the multiwave length method which has become a standard method for crystal structure determination (using synchrotron radiation). He is a distinguished crystallographer-organic drug molecules, and a specialist in photosynthesis in crystal cavities. He collaborated with Dorothy Hodgkin in solving the structure of Vitamin B12 using Anomalous scattering. His work has been mentioned in her Nobel Lecture. He is a member of National Committee on Crystallography (India).

He has written more than 150 original scientific papers, reviews, monographs and books.