Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 8 NOV: Six scientists from different IITs have been awarded the Swarna Jayanti fellowship for 2020-2021 announced recently by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
Nitin Gupta from IIT-Kanpur, Modhu Sudan Maji from IIT-Kharagpur, Chandramouli Subramaniam from IIT-Bombay, Atul Dixit from IIT Gandhinagar, Rishi Raj from IIT-Patna and Amartya Mukhopadhyay from IIT-Bombay are among the 17 scientists awardees this year.
These scientists have been awarded Fellowships for their innovative research ideas and the potential of creating impact on R&D in different disciplines.
According to the ministry of science and technology, scientists selected for the award will be allowed to pursue unfettered research with a freedom and flexibility in terms of expenditure as approved in the research plan. The scientists with proven track record and selected through a rigorous three layered screening process will pursue basic research in frontier areas of science and technology, the ministry said.
The Swanajayanti Fellowship scheme was instituted by the Central government to commemorate India’s fiftieth year of Independence. Under the scheme the awardees are facilitated by the Department of Science & Technology, GOI with support for all the requirements for performing the research including a fellowship of Rs. 25,000/- per month for five years.
In addition, the ministry said, DST supports the awardees by giving them a research grant of 5 lakh Rupees for 5 years. The fellowship is provided in addition to the salary they draw from their parent Institution. In addition to fellowship, grants for equipment, computational facilities, consumables, contingencies, national and international travel and other special requirements, are covered based on merit.
Dr. Nitin Gupta of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur works to understand the remarkable capabilities organized by the brain — from seeing to singing, from remembering to running.His research involves the electrical activity of neurons help them interact forming circuits which encode innate behavioral preferences.
The research areas of Dr Modhu Sudan Maji, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur are Cobalt-catalyzed C-H bond functionalizations, sequential catalysis, design, synthesis and application of tunable nano grapheme and total synthesis of alkaloids.
Dr. Chandramouli Subramaniam from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay works on understanding of the structure-property relations of nano-form of carbon allotropes – Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene and related doped nanocarbons such as nitrogen and boron-doped CNTs and grapheme. He uses nanocarbon based functional composites for developing sensors and actuators, especially related to biological systems.
Dr. Atul Abhay Dixit, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar works on the area at the interface of analytic number theory and special functions. His work in number theory has led him to discover new interesting special functions such as generalised modified Bessel and Hurwitz zeta functions.
The major fields of interest of Dr. Rishi Raj, Indian Institute of Technology Patna are energy, boiling, condensation, micro-/nano-Scale Thermal and fluidic transport, colloids and interface science, microgravity science.
Dr. Amartya Mukhopadhyay, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay works on materials for electrochemical energy storage and advanced structural ceramics/compositeslike electrode materials and electrode/electrolyte interfaces for Li/Na/K-ion batteries,solid electrolytes Li-ion and Na-ion batteries, electrochemical energy storage devices, development of bulk polycrystalline ‘ceramic alloys’,carbon nanotube reinforced ceramic composites and ultra-high temperature ceramics/composites.
Other winners include Sridharan Devarajan from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Niti Kumar from CSIR – Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, Ujjwal Koley from TIFR – Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Bengaluru, Arvind Singh from Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, Pabitra Kumar Nayak from TIFR – Hyderabad, Subhro Bhattacharjee from TIFR – International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru, Shamik Banerjee from Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, Mayank Shrivastava from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Siddhesh S. Kamat, Indian Institute of Science Education & Research Pune, Mousomi Bhakta (Mathematical Science) from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, and Sakya Singha Sen (Chemical Science) from the CSIR — National Chemical Laboratory (NCL).
Photo Credit @Twitter LokendraSinghRathore
Tags: #IITs #SwarnaJayantiFellowship #IITKGP #DST
