Swarna Jayanti Fellowship Scientists For 2018-19
The government of India introduced the Swarna Jayanti Fellowship scheme in commemoration of India’s fiftieth year of independence. The scheme provides special assistance and support to pursue fundamental research in the areas of science and technology to a selected number of talented and proven young scientists in India.
In the period of 2018-2019, 14 scientists who were into innovative research that had the potential to influence R&D in the respective disciplines were awarded under this scheme. The scientists were selected through a meticulous three-tier selection process from 443 applicants and will be given the opportunity to conduct unfettered research.
The Department of Science & Technology will support the 14 selected scientists for fellowship and research. The scheme will cover all the expenses for conducting the research and will provide 25,000/- per month fellowship as well as a research grant of 5 lakh rupees for 5 years on top of their salary.
A brief account of the awardees – Swarna Jayanti Fellowship Scientists
Dr. Sheetal Gandotra
CSIR- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi
Dr. Sheetal Gandotra is a talented scientist interested in understanding host-pathogen interactions. Her research is primarily focused on the cross-talk between
the host and mycobacterial metabolism, especially lipid metabolism. Her major interests fall in the Macrophage triglyceride metabolism induced by M. tuberculosis, which is crucial for the innate immune response in TB. She expects to provide a link between the function of lipid droplet localized proteins in enabling the pathogenic immune response and the infection-induced pathology, which leads to lipid droplet accumulation.Dr. Jitender Giri
National Institute of Plant Genome Research
He is focused on identifying novel genes and unveil their functions in cell signaling in response to low phosphate conditions. His proposed research has the potential to generate new rice varieties that require less water with an improved phosphate use efficiency.
Dr. Rakesh Singh Laishram
Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram
He is keen to understand the role of RNA processing in the mechanism of gene regulation and its effects on several human diseases. He hopes to detail the RNA processing in cancer, cardiovascular disease, and oxidative stress response.
Dr. Vishal Rai
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal
He is one of the Swarna Jayanti Fellowship Scientists awarded for the year 2018-19. His interests fall in the areas of Organic Chemistry & Chemical Biology. He plans to develop a chemical platform in the field of drug discovery that can come up with methods for single-site modification of proteins.
Dr. Kanishka Biswas
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru
Dr. Kanishka Biswas is focused on Renewable Energy & Clean Environmental solutions. He proposes to design and synthesize new lead-free inorganic solids that will have high thermoelectric performance and ultra-low thermal conductivity. The new lead-free solids would be environmentally friendly and maintenance-free. They can also be used in electricity generation and waste heat recovery.
Dr. Gopalan Rajaraman
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai
He is fascinated about Surface chemistry, Computational inorganic chemistry, calculation of spectral parameters, magnetism and materials science, modeling catalytic reactions in relevance to bioinorganic chemistry. Using molecular magnetic materials, he plans to study some outstanding issues in the field of molecular spintronics devices.
Dr. Apoorva Khare
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
His research interest falls in the fields of Positivity and analysis, representation theory of Lie algebras, and discrete mathematics. He proposes to study functions that preserve positivity in various forms when applied to discrete data and continuous, matrices, etc. and to develop two-way connections to symmetric function theory and algebra and other fields of mathematics.
Dr. Mahender Singh
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali
Dr. Mahender Singh, one of the 14 scientists who got the Swarna Jayanti fellowship for 2018-19, is interested in algebra and topology. He aims to investigate fundamental objects of study in low dimensional topology through his research work for understanding finite group actions on manifolds.
Dr. Subimal Ghosh
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai
He has a keen interest in Hydro-climatology, focusing on regional modeling and understanding of Indian Monsoon and Atmosphere- Land Surface Interactions and Hydrology. He aims to develop physics guided systems approach through his research work to understand the eco-hydro-meteorological system for a better understanding of the integrated system to define resilience
Dr. Smarajit Karmakar
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-Hyderabad
He is interested in Understanding Fragility, Active Glassy Materials, Polymer Glasses, Length and Time scales in Glass Forming Liquids, Yielding of Amorphous Solids. He aims to study plasticity in amorphous solids at bulk and nano-scale through his research work, which will lead to a better understanding of the dynamics of the super-cooled liquid material and better design for practical purposes.
Dr. Arjun Bagchi
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
He studies Holographic Principle in terms of the non-relativistic conformal systems, gauge/gravity duality, and various singular limits of string theory. Through Holography and String Theory, he aims to understand Quantum Gravity
Dr. Anindya Das
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
He focuses on Geophysics and Geochemistry. He intends to identify the exotic topological states in graphene hybrids through his research work, by using new types of probes like quantum noise measurements, compressibility, and probes like heat flow.
Dr. Yogesh Simmhan
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
He is keen on Temporal Graphs, including Platforms and Algorithms, Abstractions, Analytics for Science and Engineering, Edge Computing and Storage, and Scalable Data Management. He aims to develop models for representing and processing temporal graph algorithms and analytics.
Dr. Shweta Agrawal
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai
Dr. Shweta Agrawal, one of the 14 scientists who got the Swarna Jayanti fellowship for 2018-19, is keen in the field of Cryptography and Information theory. She aims to study post-quantum cryptography, namely lattice-based cryptography, through her research work. She aims to work with the objective of understanding the gaps between theory and practice as well as improving the algorithms.
