Infosys Prize 2024: Celebrating winning innovators in science and research

BENGALURU: The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 on Thursday in six categories — Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences.
Over the past 15 years, ISF recognised groundbreaking research and scholarship that influenced various aspects of human life. For the first time in 2024, the prize, with a new direction, decided to honour researchers under 40, emphasising the need for early recognition of exceptional talent.
“The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000 (or its equivalent in Indian rupees). The laureates of Infosys Prize 2024 were selected by an international panel of jurors comprising renowned scholars and experts,” the foundation said.
ISF added that the Infosys Prize remains the largest award in India that acknowledges excellence in science and research.
ISF president Kris Gopalakrishnan said: “The Infosys Prize played a pivotal role in recognising brilliant minds whose contributions are shaping the future of research and science. This year, we refocused to reward early career researchers under the age of 40, recognising their immense potential and the promise of paradigm-changing work.”
“In addition, our laureates went on to receive several prestigious international awards, including the Nobel Prize (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo), the Fields Medal (Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh), the Dan David Prize (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), the MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant (Sunil Amrith), the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Ashoke Sen), and the Marconi Prize (Hari Balakrishnan),” the foundation said.
Several were elected fellows of the Royal Society, among them, Gagandeep Kang, who became the first Indian woman to be elected.
The 2024 Winners
Arun Chandrasekhar | Economics

Arun Chandrasekhar, Professor, Department of Economics, Stanford University, received the prize for his contribution to the study of social and economic networks, using innovative data sets and drawing on theoretical methods from machine learning and computer science. His collection and mapping of network data from multiple villages in Karnataka provide a testbed for studying important questions in development economics. Prof Chandrasekhar’s work sheds light on the role of networks in the functioning of the modern economy. His work provides critical ingredients for better policymaking.
Shyam Gollakota | Engineering and Computer Science
Shyam Gollakota, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, has been recognised for his impactful research and technology translation spanning multiple engineering domains in societally relevant areas such as smartphone-based affordable healthcare tools for low-and-middle-income countries, battery-free computing and communication, and augmentation of human auditory sensing with artificial intelligence.
Mahmood Kooria | Humanities & Social Sciences

Mahmood Kooria, Lecturer, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, gave truly outstanding and seminal contributions to the study of maritime Islam from a global perspective, with a particular focus on Kerala in the pre-modern and early modern eras.
His pioneering studies revealed the role of Islamic law in shaping economic, political, and cultural transformations on the Indian Ocean littorals.
Siddhesh Kamat | Life Sciences

Siddhesh Kamat, Associate Professor, Department of Biology at IISER-Pune, received the prize for his discoveries concerning bioactive lipids and their receptors, and their metabolic and signalling pathways.
His research, using advanced methods to understand the function of lipids, a key component of cells, has important implications for understanding the role of these molecules in a range of cellular functions and human diseases.
Neena Gupta | Mathematical Sciences

Neena Gupta, Professor in the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, was chosen for her work on the Zariski Cancellation Problem, a fundamental problem in algebraic geometry first posed in 1949 by Oscar Zariski, one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry. In 2014, she proved the striking result that Asanuma’s 3-dimensional affine variety yields a negative answer to Zariski’s original Cancellation Problem in positive characteristic.
Vedika Khemani | Physical Sciences

Vedika Khemani, Associate Professor, Physics Department at Stanford University, made wide-ranging and groundbreaking contributions to theoretical and experimental non-equilibrium quantum matter, most notably the discovery of time-crystals. This could have important implications for the future of quantum computing and other technologies.