Infosys Science Foundation unveils 2024 prize winners across six major research disciplines

The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) has announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 for researchers under 40. The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000, or its equivalent in INR.

Prizes were announced across six categories - Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences. Winners were announced by ISF trustees — Kris Gopalakrishnan (President, Board of Trustees), Narayana Murthy, K. Dinesh, Dr. Pratima Murthy, Mohandas Pai, and S. D. Shibulal. Other trustees of ISF include Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Batni, and Salil Parekh.

The Infosys Prize 2024 in Economics was awarded to Arun Chandrasekhar, Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University, for his contribution to the study of social and economic networks. He used data sets and drew on theoretical methods from machine learning and computer science to collect and map network data from multiple villages in Karnataka.

The Engineering and Computer Science prize was awarded to Shyam Gollakota, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, for his research and technology translation spanning multiple engineering domains in areas such as smartphone-based affordable healthcare tools for low- and middle-income countries, battery-free computing and communication, and augmentation of human auditory sensing with artificial intelligence.

Mahmood Kooria was the winner of the Humanities and Social Sciences prize. The lecturer, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, was awarded for his contributions to the study of maritime Islam from a global perspective, with a focus on Kerala in the pre-modern and early modern eras.

The Prize in Life Sciences was awarded to Siddhesh Kamat, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the IISER, Pune, for his discoveries concerning bioactive lipids, their receptors, and their metabolic and signalling pathways.

Neena Gupta, Professor in the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, was awarded the Infosys Prize 2024 in Mathematical Sciences for her work on the Zariski Cancellation Problem.

The Prize in Physical Sciences was awarded to Vedika Khemani, Associate Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University, who has contributed to theoretical and experimental non-equilibrium quantum matter, most notably the discovery of time-crystals.

Laureates of the Infosys Prize have also received international awards, including the Nobel Prize (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo), the Fields medal (Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh), the Dan David Prize (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), the MacArthur ‘genius’ Grant (Sunil Amrith), the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Ashoke Sen), and the Marconi Prize (Hari Balakrishnan). Several laureates have been elected fellows of the Royal Society, including Gagandeep Kang.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, President of Infosys Science Foundation, said, “The Infosys Prize has played a pivotal role in recognizing brilliant minds whose contributions are shaping the future of research and science. This year, we refocused on rewarding early career researchers under 40, recognizing their immense potential and the promise of paradigm-changing work,” adding that the winners’ achievements reflect the vital connection between science and society.

The Infosys Prize is awarded by the Infosys Science Foundation, a not-for-profit trust established in 2009. The award is given annually to honour the achievements of contemporary researchers and scientists in six categories: Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences.