Prof. Thomas Pucadyil (Chair, Biology, IISER Pune) has been elected into the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) while Dr. G. J. Sreejith (Assistant Professor, Physics) has won the INSA Young Scientist Medal for 2020, along with Dr. Shradda Karve, a former PhD student at the institute.

INSA is a body of Indian scientists created in 1935 for promotion of scientific knowledge in the country. A handful of scientists working in Indian research and academic organisations, with outstanding achievements in respective fields, are elected each year to the Academy. Prof. Thomas Pucadyil is among this year’s inductees.

Prof. Pucadyil’s group studies biological membranes and vesicles. His research focuses on identifying the protein machinery involved in bending and fission of membranes, and understanding its function in cellular pathways. You can learn more about his work here. Prof. Pucadyil is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Scholar and his previous accolades include the CSIR's 2018 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Biological Sciences and Wellcome Trust-DBT Alliance Intermediate Fellowship, among others.

Each year, the INSA also awards Young Scientist Medals, a competitive award given to Indian scientists below the age of 35 years in recognition of promise, creativity and excellence in science and mathematics.

Dr. G. J. Sreejith, a theoretical condensed matter physicist, is among the winners of this prestigious award this year. He works on strongly correlated quantum many body systems, statistical mechanics and critical phenomena, using computational and semi-analytical approaches. You can know more about his research here.

Also among this year’s Young Scientist Medallists is IISER Pune alumnus, Dr. Shraddha Karve who has been feted for her doctoral work in Prof. Sutirth Dey’s lab, on evolution of bacteria under fluctuating environments.

Congratulations to Prof. Thomas Pucadyil, Dr. G. J. Sreejith and Dr. Shraddha Karve on their achievement, and best wishes for future endeavours!