Five IISc researchers get young scientist awards

It’s a testament to institute’s intellectual atmosphere, says director

BENGALURU: Five scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have bagged the prestigious INSA Medal for Young Scientists for this year. This makes IISc the only institution in the country with more INSA awardees than any other institute.

The five awardees are Dr Prabeer Barpanda, Dr Sai Siva Gorthi, Dr Praveen Kumar, Dr Anshu Pandey and Dr Chandan Saha.

Commending their achievements, IISc Director Prof Anurag Kumar said, “It is a matter of great pride and satisfaction for the Institute that for 2016, five of our young faculty members have been selected. These prestigious awards have recognized work that cuts across the boundaries of basic research and applied research and their conferral on our faculty is testament to the success of the rich and varied, interdisciplinary intellectual atmosphere of the institute.”

The Five Achievers

Dr Praveen Kumar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Engineering, has been awarded for his discovery of electric-field induced changes in the mechanical behaviour of Carbon Nanotube (CNT).

Dr Prabeer Barpanda, Assistant Professor at the Materials Research Centre, worked on the development of new classes of Lithium and Sodium cathode materials for next-generation battery and storage application.

Dr Sai Siva Gorthi, Assistant Professor, Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics, was honoured for his contribution to the field of Innovative Opto-fluidic technologies. His recent work includes R&D of in-vitro diagnostic tools, biomedical instrumentation and micro-fluidic nanotechnology.

Dr Chandan Saha, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Automation, worked on arithmetic circuit lower bounds, polynomial identity testing and reconstruction of arithmetic circuits. Understanding computational efficiency is a great challenge in theoretical computer science, said Dr Saha.

Dr Anshu Pandey, Assistant Professor, Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, also made it to the list with his outstanding contribution in the area of low threshold quantum dot lasers.

The INSA award

The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) annually honours young scientists with the INSA Young Scientist Award to distinguish young scientists of promise and creativity who have made notable research contributions in Science and Technology. Started in 1974, this award is considered to be the highest recognition of promise, creativity and excellence for a young scientist in India. Till date, 760 young scientists have been honoured with this award.

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