Infosys Science Foundation awards prizes to six innovators

Amita Jain | January 9, 2019 | 12:57 PM IST

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 9: Recognizing the individual contributions in six fields, namely Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences, the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) conferred Infosys Prize 2018 upon the winners with a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize purse of USD 1,00,000.

The winners were felicitated by the Chief Guest, Prof. Manjul Bhargava, Fields Medalist and R. Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University while also celebrating the 10th year milestone of the awards. The event was attended by scientists and academicians from India and abroad, business leaders, young researchers and students.

K. Dinesh, President of the Infosys Science Foundation said, “The past decade has seen some incredible innovations in the field of scientific research. Collaborative research has been a watchword in the space as individuals from across geographies have come together to ideate and resolve some of the most pressing global issues and contribute to academic progress.”

The winners were chosen from 244 nominations by jurors headed by eminent academics: Prof. Pradeep K. Khosla (University of California, San Diego) for Engineering and Computer; Prof. Amartya Sen (Harvard University) for Humanities; Prof. Mriganka Sur (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for Life Sciences; Prof. Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan (New York University) for Mathematical Sciences; Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology) for Physical Sciences; and Prof. Kaushik Basu (Cornell University and former SVP, World Bank) for Social Sciences.

The laureates of the Infosys Prize 2018 are:

Field	Name and designation	Recognized for
Engineering and Computer Science	Navakanta Bhat, Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Chairperson, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, IISc	Design of novel biosensors with ultra-precise detection accuracies necessary for space and environmental monitoring
Humanities	Kavita Singh, Professor and Dean, School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi	Study of Mughal, Rajput and Deccan art and her writings on historical function and role of museums in the conflicted social world in which visual culture exists
Life Sciences	Roop Mallik, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai	Molecular motor proteins, which are crucial for the functioning of living cells. Among other things, research provides insights to improve therapies for conditions such as obesity and diabetes
Mathematical Sciences	Nalini Anantharaman, Professor and Chair of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Strasbourg, France	Explores the deep relationship between classical and quantum systems and the unexpected use of entropy to prove some hard results
Physical Sciences	S.K. Satheesh, Professor, Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, and Director, Divecha Centre for Climate Change	Measuring, quantifying, and analyzing the impact of black carbon aerosols in climate science and also society that has to mitigate and cope with climate change
Social Sciences	Sendhil Mullainathan, University Professor, Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science, and George C. Tiao Faculty Fellow, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Work on behavioral economics connecting big data and machine learning issues and applications in economics

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