Tiruppattur Venkatachalamurti Ramakrishnan was born on 14 August 1941 in Madras, Tamil Nadu. He completed his B.Sc (Hons.) and M.Sc in Physics from Banaras Hindu University in 1959 and 1961. He then worked as a CSIR research fellow at Banaras Hindu University from 1961 to 1962. He later completed his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1966. He started his professional career as lecturer in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He shifted to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1986 where he continued till 2003. He also served on the Physical Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize from 2010 to 2013.