The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) on December 15, 2015 announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2015 across six categories: Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences. The prize for each category consists of a purse of Rs. 65 Lakhs, a 22 karat gold medallion and a citation certificate. S. D. Shibulal, President, Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundation said, “We set up the Infosys Science Foundation and instituted the Infosys Prize to restore the romance of research. As we move into our seventh year, the Infosys Science Foundation continues to foster a culture of scientific thinking through various initiatives.. Through our focused approach we aim to kindle the flame of scientific curiosity in young minds.”
The Awards Ceremony for the Infosys Prize 2015 will be held on February 13, 2016, in New Delhi, where the Honorable President, Shri. Pranab Mukherjee, will felicitate the winners.
The winners in Engineering and Computer Science are Prof. Umesh Waghmare, Professor – Theoretical Sciences Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore. Awarded for his innovative use of first-principles theories and modeling in insightful investigations of microscopic mechanisms responsible for specific properties of certain materials such as topological insulators, ferroelectrics, multiferroics and graphene.
Prof. Jonardon Ganeri, Global Network Visiting Professor of Philosophy, New York University and Recurrent Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, UK was awarded in Humanities 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.
In Life Sciences, Dr. Amit Sharma, Group Leader, Structural and Computational Biology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, was 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.
Prof. Mahan Maharaj, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math, Howrah, India got awarded for Mathematical Sciences and specifically for his contributions to geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology and complex geometry. In particular, Prof. 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. In the discipline of Physical Sciences, Prof. G Ravindra Kumar, Professor in the Department of Nuclear and Atomic Physics (DNAP), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, was 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. In Social Sciences, Dr. Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, was awarded for outstanding research that synthesizes military history, international politics, and strategic analysis into powerful and imaginative perspectives on India in global context.
