Infosys Prize Honors Distinguished Researchers in the Sciences and Humanities

Honorable President of India, Shri. Pranab Mukherjee, Felicitates Winners across Six Categories

Bangalore – February 13, 2016: The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) today honored winners of the Infosys Prize 2015 for their outstanding achievements and contributions to research in the fields of science and humanities. The Chief Guest, the Honorable President of India, Shri. Pranab Mukherjee, felicitated the winners at a grand ceremony in Delhi. The Infosys prize is given in six categories − Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. The laureate in each category was awarded a purse of INR 65 lakhs, a 22-karat gold medallion and a citation certificate.

The winners were chosen by six renowned jury chairs: Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla (University of California, San Diego) for Engineering and Computer Science; Prof. Amartya Sen (Harvard University) for Humanities; Dr. Inder Verma (Salk Institute of Biological Sciences) for Life Sciences; Prof. Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan (New York University)for Mathematical Sciences; Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology) for Physical Sciences; andProf. Kaushik Basu (The World Bank) for Social Sciences.

Highlights:

• The six winners of the Infosys Prize 2015 are Prof. Umesh Waghmare, Prof. Jonardon Ganeri,     Dr. Amit Sharma, Prof. Mahan Mj, Prof. G. Ravindra Kumar and Dr. Srinath Raghavan
• The six winners of this year were selected from 206 nominees
• The awards ceremony was attended by eminent scientists and leaders from different industries. Trustees of the Infosys Science Foundation present at the event were: Mr. S. D. Shibulal, President of the Board of Trustees, ISF, Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, Mr. Mohandas Pai, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Mr. Srinath Batni, Mr. K. Dinesh and Mr. R Seshasayee.

While welcoming the guests, Mr. S.D. Shibulal, President, Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundationsaid, “We are here to applaud the winners of Infosys Prize 2015 for their wonderful achievements. Their work spans fields as diverse as analytical Indian Philosophy, the atomic structure of the killer malaria parasite, and India’s foreign and security policies. Their research analyzes the world we live in on several complex planes, and helps us understand it better. The recipients of the Infosys Prize were selected by jury panels that are headed by the most eminent names in international research. The winners stand testimony to the excellent work being done in their fields.”

The Honorable President of India, Shri. Pranab Mukherjee congratulated the winners and applauded the work of the Infosys Science Foundation to encourage scientific research in India.

The winners of Infosys Prize 2015 are:

Engineering and Computer Science

Prof. Umesh Waghmare, Professor, Theoretical Sciences Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru

Prof. Umesh Waghmare has been awarded for his innovative use of first-principles theories and modeling in insightful investigations of microscopic mechanisms responsible for specific properties of specific materials such as topological insulators, ferroelectrics, multiferroics, and graphene.

Humanities

Prof. Jonardon Ganeri, Global Network Professor of Philosophy, New York University, New York and Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, King’s College London

Prof. Jonardon Ganeri has been awarded for his outstanding scholarship and originality in interpreting and scrutinizing analytical Indian Philosophy and shedding light on shared ground as well as the dichotomy between Indian and Greek traditions of philosophical reasoning.

Life Sciences

Dr. Amit Sharma, Head, Structural and Computational Biology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi

Dr. Amit Sharma has been awarded for his pioneering contributions towards deciphering the molecular structure, at the atomic level, of key proteins involved in the biology of pathogenesis of the deadly malarial parasite.

Mathematical Sciences

Prof. Mahan Mj, Professor, School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

Prof. Mahan Mj has been awarded for his contributions to geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology and complex geometry.  In particular, Prof. Mahan Mj established a central conjecture in the Thurston program to study hyperbolic 3-manifolds and introduced important new tools to study fundamental groups of complex manifolds.

Physical Sciences

Prof. G. Ravindra Kumar, Senior Professor, Department of Nuclear and Atomic Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

Prof. G. Ravindra Kumar has been awarded for his pioneering experimental contributions to the physics of high intensity laser matter interactions. In particular, for providing for the first time unequivocal evidence of turbulent magnetic fields and the discovery of terahertz frequency acoustic waves, in laser-produced hot dense plasmas. These results have significance to testing stellar and astrophysical scenarios.

Social Sciences

Dr. Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Dr. Raghavan has been awarded for outstanding research that synthesizes military history, international politics, and strategic analysis into powerful and imaginative perspectives on India in the global context.