INSA Medal Winners from IISc (from left to right) Praveen Kumar, Prabeer Barpanda, Chandan Saha
Photo credit: Siddharth Kankaria / Research Matters
Five faculty members at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, have been awarded the prestigious INSA Medal for Young Scientists for the year 2016, making it the institute with more awardees than any other. Dr. Prabeer Barpanda, Dr. Sai Siva Gorthi, Dr. Praveen Kumar, Dr. Anshu Pandey and Dr. Chandan Saha are the winners of the medal from IISc, Bangalore.
The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) annually honors young scientists with the “INSA Young Scientist Award” to distinguish young scientists of extraordinary promise and creativity who have made notable research contributions in Science and Technology. This award, started in 1974, is considered to be the highest recognition of promise, creativity and excellence for a young scientist in India. About 760 young scientists have been recognized so far and many of them have established a rewarding scientific career and continue to make outstanding contributions both in this country and abroad.
"It is a matter of great pride and satisfaction for the Indian Institute of Science that, for the year 2016, five of our young faculty members have been selected for the prestigious Young Scientist Medals of the Indian National Science Academy”, shares Prof. Anurag Kumar, Director of the institute. “These awards have recognized work that cuts across the boundaries of basic research and applied research, and of science and engineering, and their conferral on our faculty is testament to the success of the rich and varied, interdisciplinary intellectual atmosphere of the Institute. We would like to congratulate these young researchers and look forward to their achieving even greater success in the future", he adds.
Dr. Praveen Kumar, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Engineering has been awarded for his discovery of electric-field induced changes in the mechanical behavior of Carbon Nanotube (CNT). “In our work, we discovered that the strength and the energy absorption capacities of CNT cellular structures could be dramatically enhanced by applying an electric field. In addition, we also studied how we can manipulate the stress relaxation and creep behaviors, which are important for knowing the long-term applications of these samples”, explains Prof. Kumar.
“I am elated to get this prestigious award and feel quite humbled to be part of a long tradition of excellent scientists who have got this award since 1974. This award would not have been possible without the constant support of my wife and students”, he adds.
Dr. Prabeer Barpanda is an Assistant Professor at the Materials Research Centre. His work on the development of new classes of Lithium and Sodium cathode materials for next generation battery and storage application has won him this honor.
Dr. Sai Siva Gorthi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics and has been honored for his contribution to the field of Innovative Optofluidic technologies, an area that combines the advantages of microfluidics and optics. His recent work includes research and development of in-vitro diagnostic tools, biomedical instrumentation and microfluidic nanotechnology.
Dr. Chandan Saha is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Automation. His work on arithmetic circuit lower bounds, polynomial identity testing and reconstruction of arithmetic circuits has led to the discovery of new mathematical techniques and substantial progress on these problems. “Understanding computational efficiency is a great challenge in theoretical computer science. Our work in the last 8 years has revealed new insights into the behavior of low-depth circuits that capture highly parallel computations. Low-depth circuits also form a gateway to understanding the intricate nature of general arithmetic computations. So, there is hope that some of the ideas and proof techniques introduced in our work will continue to generate exciting new research in the area”, he explains on his award winning work.
“It certainly feels great to be recognized. I am happy that the community has found our work interesting. I would like to thank my collaborators and the institutions IISc, IIT, Kanpur and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics”, shares Prof. Saha.
Dr. Anshu Pandey, an Assistant Professor at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, made it to the list with his outstanding contributions in the area of low threshold quantum dot lasers.
These awards are definitely a great way to recognize the contributions of young scientists. “Such awards and recognition bring more visibility to a work which in turn may draw more fresh young minds to research in the area. This can be particularly useful and encouraging to a young scientist”, opines Dr. Saha. The winners also express changes that could be made to the current system of recognition. “I think that although competition is good, we should establish an award system which also encourages collaboration amongst young scientists - instead of sheer competition. In my opinion, awards encouraging collaborations can help science quite effectively”, signs off Prof. Praveen Kumar.