Infosys Prize winners of 2011 announced

BANGALORE: The Infosys Science Foundation on Wednesday announced the winners of the Infosys Prize for 2011. The prize seeks to recognise outstanding contributions across categories of scientific research namely Engineering and Computer Science, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences.Prof Kalyanmoy Deb, director of the Kanpur Genetic Algorithms Laboratory has won this years in the Engineering and Computer Science category for his contributions to the emerging field of Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimisation.Dr. Imran Siddiqi, group leader, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, won the award for his contributions to the basic understanding of clonal seed formation in plants under the life sciences category.Prof Kannan Soundararajan has been awarded the Mathematical Sciences prize for his work in analytic number theory and the study of critical values of general zeta functions.Prof Sriram Rajagopal Ramaswamy of the Centre for Condensed Matter Theory from the city based Indian Institute of Science was awarded the Infosys Prize for his pioneering work in the field of active matter which enables detailed research into the collective aspects of living systems.Describing his work, the jury chair Shrinivas Kulkarni said, “His work lies at the interface of Physics and Biology. He has done seminal work regarding the motion and behaviour of bacteria, proteins, birds and fish.” The final category of Social Sciences was split between two awardees this year namely Dr.Rahuram G Rajan, who won the Social Sciences prize for analysing the contribution of financial development to economic growth and Dr.Pratap Bhanu Mehta for his contributions to the field of Political Science and International Relations. Discussing how the candidates were chosen, chairman Emeritus N R Narayana Murthy said, “The order of preference is an Indian resident who has worked in India, a person of Indian origin whose work has had an impact on India and the world.” He added that ideally the people chosen were between 40-50 years of age and in exceptional cases up to 55.Infosys also unveiled the ‘Infosys Prize Lectures’, a series of public talks to showcase research and experiences of the laureates and the jurors of the Infosys prize with a view to motivate young talent to undertake research as a career choice.