Infosys Science Foundation announces six 2016 Infosys Prize winners

Infosys Science Foundation has announced the coveted Infosys Prize 2016 and six achievers, including Professor V Kumaran of the department of chemical engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, have emerged as winners. The awards were announced on Friday.

Kumaran won the prize in the Engineering and Computer Science category for making contributions in the field of cardiovascular and pulmonary health.

Other winners included Prof Sunil Amrith (Humanities), Dr Gagandeep Kang (Life Sciences), Prof Akshay Venkatesh (Mathematical Sciences), Dr Anil Bharadwaj (Physical Scien ces) and Prof Kaivan Munshi (Social Sciences).

Cash prize of Rs 65 lakh each, a 22 karat gold medallion and a citation certificate will be given to the six winners of the Infosys Prize 2016. The six will be felicitated by Royal Society and Nobel laureate on January 7 in Bengaluru.

This year witnessed the highest number of 252 nominations out of which six were announced winners by Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, foundation president SD Shibulal said.

Eminent scientists and professors in Prof Venkatraman Ramak rishnan, president of the cluding Prof Pradeep K Khosla, University of California San Diego (Engineering & Computer Science); Prof Amartya Sen, Harvard University (Humanities); Dr Inder Verma, Salk Institute of Biological Sciences (Life Sciences); Prof Shrinivas Kulkarni, California Institute of Technology, (Physical Sciences); Prof Srinivasa SR Varadhan, New York University (Mathematical Sciences) and Prof Kaushik Basu, Cornell University (Social Sciences) were chairing the jury for six categories.

Below is the list of winners:

Prof V Kumaran from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) -- Engineering and computer science

Prof Sunil Amrith from Harvard University, US -- Humanities

Dr Gagandeep Kang from Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad -- Life sciences

Prof Akshay Venkatesh from Stanford University, US -- Mathematics

Dr Anil Bhardwaj from Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram -- Physical Sciences

Prof Kaivan Munshi from University of Cambridge, UK -- Social sciences