Awards Archives - Page 2 of 3

Recognizing Excellence, 2012

Several colleagues have been recognized for their research excellence in the past year, and here is a sampling of what I was able to collect to present at the Court and Executive Council meetings this month. And just a bit beyond…

Most recently, Dr D B Ramachary, a synthetic organic chemist in our School of Chemistry has been named this year’s B M Birla prize awardee. The B M Birla prizes are awarded to young Indian scientists, below the age of 40 years, who have made outstanding original contributions in their fields. The objective is to encourage uncompromising excellence and to recognise the contributions of such scientists while encouraging others to achieve even higher standards of excellence. The prestigious awards have been instituted by the B M Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, which is a premier institution for the dissemination of science in the country.

The Gupta Prize was established by M. M. Gupta, Chairman of the Gupta Group in Eluru, to promote Literature, Science, Arts, other intellectual pursuits and Humanitarian services and to honour distinguished persons or Institutions in these fields. Prof. Bethavolu Ramabrahmam of the Department of Telugu is this year’s awardee. He is in distinguished company- earlier awardees include M.S. Subbulakshmi, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, and Dr. C. Rangarajan. Prof. Ramabrahmam is also the Chair of the Centre for Classical Telugu, and has done exemplary work in publishing classical texts with modern commentary.

KBhanuSankaraRao In the School of Engineering Science and Technology, Dr Dibakar Das has been elected Fellow of the Indian Institute of Ceramics, Dr Srikanth has been named this year’s INAE Young Engineer, and Prof. Bhanu Shankar Rao (who retired from the service of the University recently) has been named the Metallurgist of the year by Indian Institute of Metals.

apparao_p

Prof. P Appa Rao of the Department of Plant Sciences in the School of Life Sciences has been elected to the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. NAAS, established in 1990, is among the youngest of the Science Academies of India. It owes its origin to the vision of the late Dr. B. P. Pal, FRS. The Academy focuses on the broad field of agricultural sciences including crop husbandry, animal husbandry, fisheries, agro-forestry and interface between agriculture and agro-industry.

Dr. Usha Raman of the Department of Communication in the Sarojini Naidu School has just been given an International Research Collaboration Award from the University of Sydney, to work with a group at the School of Public Health and the George Institute for Global Health, specifically, to provide inputs on qualitative methodologies in health research. This is a competitive award which funds a senior academic to come spend 8 weeks at the host institution and interact with early career researchers.

Congratulations all around!

Inspiration Transfer

We had an unusual treat last Sunday, 11 November. Professor Rudolph A Marcus of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1992) was conferred the degree of Doctor of Science (honoris causa) of the University of Hyderabad.

Marcus, a theoretical chemist, was awarded the prize in 1992 for work that he essentially carried out in the 1950’s, on an explanation of how electrons are transferred from one species to another. Electron transfer is, arguably, the simplest form of a chemical reaction, characterised by the fact that no “bonds are made or broken”. Because charges move around though, there is considerable reorganization of the environment. As has been gradually recognized over the years, electron transfer plays an important role in phenomena ranging from photosynthesis to corrosion. It is not an exaggeration to state, as has often been done, that without it life cannot exist.

The event on Sunday was structured around a formal scientific talk entitled Electron Transfer Reaction Theory in Chemistry – from the Isotopic Exchange Reactions of the 1940s and 1950s to the Modern Solar Energy Conversion Era (see the abstract below). In a discursive introduction to the history of the field, Marcus explained the various different experiments that were necessary to validate the theory and just why the gap between the original theory and the award was so long.The talk was riveting, and not just because Marcus is a Nobelist: the vibrancy and enthusiasm in the delivery belied the speaker’s 89 years. He still teaches and guides students, he finds himself getting interested in current experiments, and is always out to test his theories of which there are several. From the time of his Ph D, which dates to 1946 or thereabouts, to now, it has very much been a life in science and a life of science…

But the true value of his presence came through in his subsequent interaction with students both outside the auditorium (see the picture above) as well as in the Conversation with Rudy Marcus, a free-flowing exchange when anyone could (and did) ask him questions on any aspect of his work and life. As a colleague wrote to me the next day: Two hours with Rudy was like a two semester course!

There was much to learn from him- mainly his passion for science and his approach, that combined a deep appreciation of mathematics with a respect for experiments, and the knowledge that theory cannot be applied if it is not “simple” to do so. And it was difficult not to be enthused- he has been an inspiration to generations of theoretical chemists !- by his continuing curiosity, his enthusiasm, and his intensity.
In his long career, starting at the Brooklyn Polytechnic, then at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and now at the California Institute of Technology, Rudy has taught generations of students, though he has not had a very large research group- four or five students and a couple of postdocs most of the time. The problems he has attacked typically focus on experimentally observable effects. Speaking earlier in Bangalore, on the need for research that solved practical problems, Rudy stressed the importance of universities in enabling the creative process, namely the freedom to think. I have not found it said better or more economically: “In an university, you will be subjected to a regimen of methodological thinking, intellectual labour and structured intellectual activity. At the end of this, one earns cognitive freedom. Such freedom cannot be claimed as a right.”
He has used this freedom rather well.

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Continue reading “Inspiration Transfer”

A very special milestone

19/07/12. On this day, for the first time in the history of the Department of Economics at the University of Hyderabad (and possibly a first in the University), a visually challenged candidate, Ms. B. Madhuri Smitha, successfully defended her Ph. D. thesis in Economics. One of her two thesis supervisors, Dr Naresh K Sharma (the other is Dr B Kamaiah) writes:

Though denied of the great faculty of vision (Ms. Madhuri Smitha has total loss of vision) by nature, she is well endowed, by the same nature’s benevolence, with abundant intelligence and a will to achieve her own targets. Incidentally, this first feat (in Economics at HCU) by a visually challenged person, is achieved by a women candidate. In addition to her own great perseverance and hard work, she was supported with equally great dedication by her mother in this work and also backing of her father. She has completed her Ph. D. work while working as a faculty member at the Koti Women’s College ( a constituent college of OU).

It is always humbling to see such courage and determination, and always an inspiration. Thank you, Dr Smitha, and from the entire University community, our heartiest congratulations and best wishes!

Her graduation photograph is on Facebook.

The Secret Life of Plant Biologists

It is always a pleasure to bring to the notice of the wider UoH community that a colleague has been honoured for his excellence in research: Professor A S Raghavendra of the Department of Plant Sciences has been named a Corresponding Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists.

The award will be formally presented during the opening session of Plant Biology 2012, ASPB’s annual meeting in July in Austin, Texas. First given in 1932, the Corresponding Membership Award honors up to three distinguished plant biologists residing outside the United States with life membership in the ASPB, a professional scientific society, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, devoted to the advancement of the plant sciences worldwide.

With a membership of some 4,500 plant scientists from throughout the United States and more than 50 other nations, the Society publishes two of the most widely cited plant science journals: The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology.

The citation reads: Agepati Srinivasa Raghavendra (University of Hyderabad, India) is nominated for pioneering work in photosynthetic carbon metabolism and stomatal guard cell function. Agepati also has introduced innovative techniques for the rapid isolation of highly active mesophyll protoplasts from pea and Arabidopsis, monitoring cytosolic pH by fluorescent dyes, and developing a reconstituted system of isolated mitochondria and peroxisomes.

One more feather in the cap of the Department of Plant Sciences… Bravo!

Sweet!

Hearty congratulations to our colleague P. Ramu Sridhar of the School of Chemistry, who has been awarded the INSA Young Scientist Medal for the year 2012. He earned his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science in the area of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, post-docced at Purdue and at Ohio State, joining the UoH in 2007. He has been working on carbohydrate chemistry, specifically in Glycotherapeutics and Total synthesis of Natural Products.

Sridhar has been recognised for his excellent work in other ways as well: as a student he got the best thesis award and the Guha research Medal at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and last year he was selected as a young Associate of Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore.

From his website I gather that his research “involves the synthesis of carbohydrates, glyco-amino acids and oligosaccharides.” He has been working with carbohydrates for several years, developing “new techniques for the synthesis of glcycosyl amines and sugar amino acids. Most of these molecules are new and their biological applications are still under investigation.”

Working on sugars clearly brings sweet rewards… Well done!

Awards for Life

Three of our colleagues in the School of Life Sciences have been recognized by the DBT (the Department of BioTechnology). Sharmishta Banerjee and Ravi Kumar Gutti of the Department of Biochemistry have been given the 2011 Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award while Niyaz Ahmed Associate Professor in the Department of Biotechnology has been given the National Bioscience Award.

Here is something I found on his website: Dr Niyaz Ahmed graduated in Veterinary Medicine in 1995 and obtained further degrees in Animal Biotechnology (MS) and Molecular Medicine (PhD). He joined the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics – Hyderabad, as a tenured Faculty Member (Staff Scientist) in 1998 and since then contributed a significant body of applied research in the area of infectious disease biology and genetics. Amidst his busy research career Niyaz is an ardent supporter of the PLoS lead contemporary approach to Open Science, Open Access to Science and Open Evaluation of Science. He is a Section Editor (Microbiology and Genomics) of PLoS ONE and has overseen/handled peer review of dozens of landmark articles there. Dr Ahmed is the co- founder of the ISOGEM, a scientific society headquartered at Sassari, Italy and serves as its General Secretary.

Congratulations!

A bunch of jolly good Fellows

The existence of several Academies of Science in India has frequently been commented upon, mainly with regard to why, for instance, there are three and not just one. The discourse does not take long to descend into a discussion of the circumstances, both personal and professional, that gave rise to these three: The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, The Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and the National Academy of Science (India), Allahabad.

Be that as it may, for a scientist, election to any of these academies is a matter of honour, as is the election to other academies of science and technology, agriculture, engineering, medicine and so on.

In our state, the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences is one such, and this year, two of our colleagues have been elected to their Fellowship: Arun Agarwal and Ashwini Nangia, for services to the sciences…

INSA, the Indian National Science Academy has elected Aparna Dutta Gupta (for her original contributions to the area of hexamerin receptors and their role in juvenile hormone action in insects) and V Suresh (for outstanding contributions to quadratic forms and algebraic geometry. The most impressive results of Suresh include the proof of a long standing conjecture on the value of the u-invariant of the function field of a curve over a local field and establishing the local-global principle for a wide class of homogeneous spaces of algebraic groups. His work has opened up new avenues of research and inspired leading mathematicians in the area.)

IASc, the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore has elected M Durgaprasad of the School of Chemistry for his contributions to theoretical chemistry, while NASI the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad has elected S Dayananda (for his contributions in microbial remediation of organophosphate insecticides by novel genes from microbes), P B Kirthi and Venapally Suresh.

All in all, our colleagues have made us proud, by underscoring the importance of original research, and by providing a set of standards of achievement that all of us can aspire to. Further, they remind us that peer recognition is invaluable, both for validation of the (often lonely and difficult) choices we make in our careers and in our research, and for establishing new benchmarks for work and performance. In both these aspects, the research that has been carried out at the University has been of the highest quality, setting world standards in many cases, and helping us to stand quite apart from the herd…

The seven named here join many others in our University who have been recognized by INSA, IASc and NASI- and of course other academies, The Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (twas), the Royal Society (London) and others*. To all of them, Bravo!

* This information is all I have been able to get so far… Please let me know about omissions if any- I will be glad to add names and fellowships.

Physics***

The N. S. Satya Murthy Memorial Award in Physics for young scientists was instituted in the memory of late, Dr. N. S. Sathya Murthy in the year 1992, by his colleagues at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. This is given by Indian Physics Association to a scientist below the age of 35 years, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the growth of Physics in India by way of research, applications and other activities. The selection of the awardee is made by a committee constituted by the executive committee of IPA. The recipient of this award should have carried out a major part of the reported work within India. This year’s award, which will formally be given on 12 January, goes to our colleague in the School of Physics, Surajit Dhara who works in the area of liquid crystals. The specific work that is being cited is his fundamental contributions on the structure property correlation in unconventional liquid crystals, and the discovery of discontinuous anchoring transition and its applications.

Another piece of good news to share is that our colleague Ganapathy Vaitheeswaran in ACRHEM has been elected as Associate Fellow in Physical Sciences for the year 2011 by the Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences. Dr Vaitheeswaran works in the general area of theoretical condensed matter physics.

Earlier, on the 19th of December 2011, the University awarded the D. Sc. (honoris causa) to Professor Girish Agarwal, presently of Oklahoma State University, Stillwater and earlier our colleague, from 1977 to 1995. Writing about him some years ago, his colleagues in the School of Physics had this to say: Professor Girish Saran Agarwal, the founder Dean of School of Physics, is one of the outstanding scientists of India, who has elevated quantum optics research in India on par with the top international levels. A product of the Mecca of optics, the University of Rochester, he dedicated himself to the growth of indian science, ﬁrst as the founder Dean of School of Physics, University of Hyderabad (UH), and then as the Director of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. His contributions to quantum and nonlinear optics span every conceivable area ranging from near-ﬁeld optics to EIT-assisted giant nonlinearities, from cavity QED to quantum Information, from optical bistability to tests of non-classicality. Such a broad spectrum is truly rare even in the international context.

Though he was trained as a theoretician, his understanding of modern sophisticated experiments is remarkable. His many collaborative papers with the groups of Prof. Walther and Prof. Boyd speak for that. That he was much ahead of his time is evidenced by many of his path-breaking theoretical predictions which were veriﬁed much later by other experimental groups. His discoveries have frequently led to new directions of research. A long list of collaborators from all over the world who are themselves eminent scientists proves the truly global nature of his science.

The immense contributions of Prof. Agarwal have been recognized: he has received all the major awards of India for scientiﬁc research, including the S S Bhatnagar award and many international recognitions. At UoH he was the ﬁrst to attract some major international awards like the Max Born Prize of the Optical Society of America and the Physics prize of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, the Max Born Award, and the Einstein Medal of the Optical Society of America. He was also the ﬁrst at our University to be honored by the American Physical Society by its Fellowship. Very recently he was recognized by the University of Liege with the award of the honoris causa.

In view of his outstanding contributions to optical sciences and quantum optics and his service to the scientiﬁc community, the University of Hyderabad is honoured to award Professor Agarwal the D. Sc. (hon. caus.).

Hearty congratulations to all!

Ebrahim Alkazi, D. Litt. (hon. caus.)

On the 14th of this month, December 2011, the University of Hyderabad will award Ebrahim Alkazi the degree of D. Litt. (honoris causa) at a brief ceremony at the IIC in New Delhi. Under normal circumstances we would have preferred to have given it at our convocation in Hyderabad, but that is not to be.

Our University decided to award him the degree a few years ago, and unfortunately it has taken us this long to get around to it. Nevertheless, on the 14th following the ceremony there will be a panel discussion on Theatre Pedagogy in India: Retrospect & Prospect chaired by Professor Mohan Maharishi, with Anuradha Kapoor, Keval Arora, Maya Rao and Shantanu Bose speaking.

Prof. Ananthakrishna of the SN School writes: Born in Pune in 1925, Ebrahim Alkazi had his initial training in theatre at Sultan ‘Bobby’ Padamsee’s English-language theatre company, Theatre Group in Mumbai. In 1947 he went to England to study art but joined in Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London to get trained in theatre. Being a winner of the BBC broadcasting award in 1950 and having recognition from British Drama League for his outstanding work, he was offered several opportunities in theatre in London, but he refused these and returned to India where he worked with the Theatre Group from 1950 to 1954, and later formed his own, independent, Theatre Unit in 1954.

Though all the productions carried out under the Theatre Unit were in English, the directorial impulses were relevant to Indian context and with a new vibrancy in performance in terms of visual language, energy, perfection and design. Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (1954), Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (1955), Anouilh’s Antigone (1957) and Euripides’ Medea (1960) were the major plays directed by Alkazi with Theatre Unit. He set up a small performance space on the terrace of his apartment with 150 seat capacity to stage the plays of Theatre Unit. To generate theatre literacy and to disseminate new work and trends in contemporary theatre, he founded the monthly ‘Theatre Unit Bulletin’ in 1953 which featured new works in India and abroad, articles and reviews on theatre. In addition to this he started the first acting school in Mumbai, the School of Dramatic Arts, later becoming the principal of Bombay’s Natya Academy.

Alkazi was the founder director of NSD, the National School of Drama, in 1962 and continued as director till 1977. He converted the diploma programme in to a three year course introducing rigorous practice schedules along with equal intellectual inputs. By insisting that all elements of theatre should be seriously considered in order to achieve perfection, through his meticulous research he created true professional standards. Given his proficiency in the fine arts and literature, he emphasised the importance of all components of theatre. The pedagogy he evolved in the National School of Drama was the first of its kind in India, comprehensive and with a scientific approach. He built up the National School of Drama, established its repertory company in 1964 to give its graduates a working space and also as a disseminating unit for meaningful theatre. The productions in NSD during his time created a tremendous impact in Indian theatre.

His contribution to Indian theatre is multifold; he shaped the philosophy of theatre training in NSD, and this later became a model for many other institutions; his productions Ashad ka ek Din, Andha Yug and Tughlak were landmark events in Indian theatre that used unconventional spaces in an innovative manner. The University is very honoured to be able to include Ebrahim Alkazi in our list of honoris causa doctorates.

Outstanding!

The image on the left shows our colleague in the School of Physics, Rukmani Mohanta at the WISE 2011 (Women in Science and Engineering) conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 29 September. That was the day that TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world, OWSD the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World and The Elsevier Foundation announced that they are recognizing eleven talented women scientists from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean for their research excellence.
Dr Mohanta is being recognised for her contributions in high energy physics, and is the only awardee from India. Each winner will receive a cash prize of US$5,000.
The press release says: “Once again, the standard of the winners selected for the OWSD Awards for Young Women Scientists from the Developing World has been outstanding. For us, this is not a surprise, as we are well aware of the excellent contributions that women are making to science,” noted Professor Fang Xin, President of OWSD. “The aim of the OWSD Awards, therefore, is to honor the work of these young researchers, bringing it to the attention of the scientific and policy-making communities in their countries, and to highlight their successes so that they may act as role models to other girls and young women who might be considering a career in science.”
Lubna Tahtamoouni, winner from The Hashemite University in Jordan said, “Over the years I came to recognize that it is difficult for women to do science since they have to juggle their career, marriage, motherhood and other social obligations. Winning such an award made me more confident about my decision of pursuing a career in science. Women need recognition, especially young women to give them that ‘head start’ and confidence. This award is celebrating women!”
Denise Evans, biological sciences winner from South Africa added, “It is important to highlight that women, even from developing countries, are doing great things – making breakthroughs, contributing to advances in medicine, science, chemistry and engineering – becoming leaders and experts in their field. It is important to acknowledge young scientists so that they may be motivated from an early age to stay in science and develop a career in science and research.”
Through a grant from the Elsevier Foundation, the OWSD Awards for Young Women Scientists from the Developing World were expanded to cover three disciplines in each region – Biology, Chemistry, and Physics/Maths. The grant was made as part of the Elsevier Foundation New Scholars program, which supports programs for women scholars during the early stages of demanding careers in science and technology. After a rigorous review by the four regional OWSD committees, shortlisted candidates in each discipline were nominated and subsequently ranked by the regional vice presidents and Professor Fang Xin, the current OWSD president.”
Heartiest Congratulations, Dr Mohanta!