IIT-Kanpur professor conferred with GD Birla Award 2016 for Scientific Research

Sanjay Mittal, IIT-Kanpur professor, has won the prestigious G D Birla Award 2016 for Scientific Research. A professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 48-year-old Mittal was chosen for the award for his contribution in the area of Mechanics, the K K Birla Foundation said in a statement.

Mittal has significantly contributed to the development of finite element algorithms for high performance computing (HPS).
His most significant contribution has been in the area of Bluff Body Flows (flows past blunt bodies associated with large unsteady separation and leading to large fluid forces). A very few people in India who have worked on and used Finite Element Analysis for fluid flows and Mittal is one of them.

Mittal was instrumental in establishing the HPC facility, primarily funded by DST at IIT-Kanpur. In 1988, he did his B.Tech from IIT-Kanpur. He then got enrolled at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities for MS programme. Later, he worked as a research associate under Prof Tayfun E Tezduyar after receiving his Ph.D.

Mittal worked at Army High Performance Computing Centre for two years. He then returned to India and joint IIT-Kanpur as an Assistant Professor in 1994. In the past, Mittal has also received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.

The G D Birla Award for Scientific Research was instituted in 1991. It seeks to recognise Indian scientists aged below 50 living and working in India for their outstanding contribution to any branch of science and technology. It also carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh. A board comprising eminent scientists make the selection of the award.