Infosys Science Foundation announces six winners of Infosys Prize 2022; Check list here

The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) on Tuesday announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2022 in six categories – Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences.

The winners are Suman Chakraborty (Engineering & CS), Sudhir Krishnaswamy (Humanities), Vidita Vaidya (Life Sciences), Mahesh Kakde (Mathematical Sciences), Nissim Kanekar (Physical Sciences), and Rohini Pande (Social Sciences). The winners will get a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000.

Following the announcement, ISF President Kris Gopalakrishnan said that the Infosys Prize is promoting stellar research in India by identifying and rewarding individual scholars. "Even as our laureates add to the sum total of human knowledge, their work has real impact in the here and now," he said.

Infosys co-founder and ISF trustee Narayana Murthy said there is an urgent need for both government and private sectors to invest more in science and research. "This is the best way forward to solve the many problems that confront us as a nation and humanity as a whole," he said.

Meet the Winners

Chakraborty is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Dean of Research and Development at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has been awarded the prize for his pioneering work in elucidating the interaction of fluid mechanics, interfacial phenomena, and electromechanics at the micro- and nanoscale. Using this understanding, the foundation said, he has helped to advance healthcare in resource-limited settings through the invention of novel low-cost medical devices for sensing, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

Krishnaswamy, Vice Chancellor at National Law School of India University, got the coveted prize for his understanding of the Indian Constitution, "especially his carefully argued account of the importance of the landmark ‘basic structure doctrine’ adopted by the Supreme Court in 1973 that guides and constrains various efforts to amend it, while also ensuring its stability in the face of executive and legislative outcomes in India’s political life," as the citation states.

Professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Vaidya has got the prize for her contributions to understanding brain mechanisms that underlie mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, including signals engaged by the neurotransmitter serotonin in causing persistent changes in behavior induced by early life stress and the role of serotonin in energy regulation in brain cells.

The jury, which comprised Professors Arvind, Akeel Bilgrami, Mriganka Sur, Chandrashekhar Khare, Shrinivas Kulkarni, and Kaushik Basu, awarded the prize in mathematics to Kakde for his contributions to algebraic number theory. Kakde is a Professor of Mathematics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

The Infosys Prize in Social Sciences went to Rohini Pande, an economist who is currently the Henry J Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director, Economic Growth Center, Yale University. She got the prize for her research on subjects of key importance, including governance and accountability, women’s empowerment, the role of credit in the lives of the poor, and the environment.

Nissim Kanekar, who got the prize in the Physical Sciences category, is a Professor at the National Centre for Radio Astronomy, Pune. He won the prize for his study of galaxies in an era – the so-called “high noon” period – in which stars were being formed at a maximum rate.