6 conferred Infosys prize; 3 are from Bengaluru

The Infosys Science Foundation gave away awards to the winners of the Infosys Prize 2021 on Thursday for their outstanding contributions to science across six fields and addressing some of the major problems confronting the world today: the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and nuclear energy, plus sexual violence and jurisprudence in India.

Three of the winners are experts in their respective domains and live in the city.

Among them is Dr Chandrasekhar Nair, the chief technology officer of Molbio Diagnostics in Bengaluru, who was recognised under the category of engineering and computer science.

Dr Nair won the prize for his development and large-scale deployment of TrueNat, a new point-of-care testing platform for PCR-based medical diagnostics.

The battery-operated platform can test over 30 diseases, including tuberculosis, in under one hour.

Winning the prize for Humanities was Dr Angela Barreto Xavier from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal, who was recognised for her research and analysis of conversions and violence in the Portuguese empire in India, especially Goa.

The third winner was another Bengaluru resident, Professor Mahesh Sankaran of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), winning in the category of Life Sciences.

In a statement, NCBS said Dr Sankaran’s research had “pioneered understanding of savannas”. His work on the ecology of tropical savannah ecosystems is said to have had an impact on conservation strategies.

In the realm of mathematical sciences, Dr Neeraj Kayal of Microsoft’s research lab in Bengaluru, was recognised for his work on algebraic computation, as well as designing efficient algorithms for reconstruction and equivalence of such algebraic circuits.

Dr Kayal’s theoretical work on complexity theory provides mathematical tools to understand efficiency and limitations of algorithms.

In the realm of physical sciences, the winner is Professor Dr Bedangadas Mohanty of NISER, Bhubaneswar, who has been involved in investigations of nuclear force.

While the most devastating consequences of the nuclear force are known, there has been little detailed understanding of how it works.

Dr Mohanty’s view is that by understanding nuclear force in detail, we can better harness nuclear energy.

Finally, in the field of social sciences, Dr Pratiksha Baxi from the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University was rewarded for her “pioneering work on sexual violence and jurisprudence.”

Baxi’s research and analysis revealed how gendered violence is reproduced by juridical practice.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, president, Infosys Science Foundation, said the prize was instituted to help important science agencies.

“We have all of this talent and we have very few names of scientists that the younger generation can look up to and emulate,” he said, adding that the Foundation’s job is to make “icons and role models of these individuals for showing us the way while finding answers to their own quest.”

The winners were felicitated by the chief guest, Professor Gagandeep Kang of CMC, Vellore.

The award comprises a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize-purse of $100,000, tax-free in India.

The laureates were chosen from a competitive pool of 201 nominations received this year.