Teachers have played a key role in shaping science in India today. The Indian National Science Academy (INSA), established to promote science in India and harnessing scientific knowledge for the cause of humanity and national welfare recognizes excellence, consistency and high level of teaching in Indian colleges, universities and institutions through an annual Teachers Award.
The award honours teachers who have provided guidance, inspiration and mentored students to take up careers in Science and Technology. The India Science Technology and Innovation portal brings you a profile of the awardees of 2019.
Bose Sankar: Dr Bose research is focused on the evolution of lower crust from petrological study of high-grade metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Ghats Belt (EGB) of India. Characterization of ultrahigh temperature (UHT) metamorphic process in this belt is an important contribution to the knowledge of crustal evolution. He did his doctoral research on petrological evolution of the Eastern Ghats Belt of India he received National Geoscience Award (2012) by Govt. of India for outstanding contribution in the field of Basic Geoscience. In the year 2016, he was awarded the JSPS-Bridge Fellowship to work with scientists from Hiroshima University and Nagoya University, Japan. He became a member of the international research group Hiroshima Institute of Plate Convergence Region Research (HiPeR) in 2017. I received the INSA Teachers Award in the year 2019. As Principal Investigator he completed four major research project funded by DST, CSIR including one International Bilateral project (DST-JSPS) and currently working in a major project from MoES and one International Bilateral project (DST-JSPS).
Brahmachari Goutam: Prof. Brahmachari’s research interests include; synthetic organic chemistry with special emphasis on green chemistry, isolation, structural determination, and detailed NMR study of new natural products from medicinal plants, semi-synthetic studies with natural products, and evaluation of biological activities and pharmacological potential of natural and synthetic compounds. With more than twenty years of teaching experience, he has produced many scientific publications including original research papers, review articles and invited book chapters in edited books in the field of natural products and organic synthesis from internationally reputed presses. Based on his research, 12 students have been awarded Ph.D. degree in various areas of natural products and synthetic organic chemistry. A couple of fellows are presently working with him. Prof. Brahmachari is optimistic enough to carry on all sorts of academic involvements up to his optimum capability in more depth in days coming ahead.
Dabhade RV: Dr Raka Vasant Dabhade is an Associate Professor and Head, at the Department of Physics, Fergusson College, Pune, India. She started her teaching career by teaching in school and later moved on to College hence she has taught students of all ages. She has a wide experience of a variety of educational systems which has taught her the different teaching methods and structures that go into tertiary education. Apart from teaching, she has carried out many research projects and guided many students projects, conducted seminars, workshops, exhibitions and motivated students to do research especially in Astronomy and Astrophysics which is relatively a new subject in India. Presently she is involved with the TARA observatory, autonomous robotic telescope facility which will make possible remote observations. She completed her school education from Lusaka, Zambia, and PhD from Pune University.
De Sudipta: Dr Sudipta research interest includes sustainable energy and exergy analyses clean coal technology and energy conservation. His field of specialization is thermal engineering. He is associated as professor at mechanical engineering department, Jadavpur University. He has the teaching experience of more than 20 years at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. apart from teaching, she has carried out many research projects and guided many students projects, conducted seminars, workshops, exhibitions and motivated students to do research in the field of thermal engineering.
Dutta Paramartha: Dr Dutta research interest includes remote sensing, telecommunication, computing and optical computation. His field of specialization is computer science. He is associated as a professor at department of computer & system sciences, siksha bhavan, visva-bharati. He has several papers in Journal and Conference proceedings. In addition, he has got a patent on intelligent techniques to his credit and authored several books. He has the experience of successfully handling various projects funded by the Government of India. Moreover, he has supervised three scholars who have earned their Ph. D. Dr. Dutta is a member/fellow of different professional bodies including IEEE and ACM.
Debashis Ghoshal: Dr Ghoshal’s research interest includes string theory, Quantum field theory, Cosmology of the early universe. Presently, he is the professor of Physics at SPS, JNU, New Delhi. He has the experience of successfully handling various projects funded by the Government of India. He has several papers in Journal and Conference proceedings.
Gupta Saibal: Dr. Gupta Saibal’s research area includes Structural Geology, Metamorphic Petrology and Tectonics. He got his fellowship from Geological Society of India and Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Society of India. As a Principal Investigator, he successfully completed his research project funded by DST-AISRF. Further, He has been working as Editorial Board member in Indian Journal of Geology and in Himalayan Geology also.
Kumar Sanjay: Sanjay Kumar is working in Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras as a Professor. His research interests include computational modeling of organic reactions & their mechanistic pathways, Development of methodologies in ab initio bound-state & Quantum Dynamics calculations, Elementary chemical reactions, Ion/Electron-molecule collisions, Chemical reaction dynamics beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approx and Theoretical chemistry, Quantum molecular reaction Dynamics. He has been also a visiting faculty at Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at University of Bonn, Germany.
Manchanda Rohit: Dr Rohit research includes computational studies on synaptic transmission, electrical signalling and information processing in excitable cells and tissues. Cell types explored include smooth muscle cells and neurons of the CNS, particularly ventral striatal medium spiny neurons. Investigations have been carried out using both analytical and compartmental modelling approaches, and include studies on synaptic potentials, action potentials and underlying membrane currents. The NEURON platform has been widely employed for single neuron computation studies. Through our work, we attempt both to explain enigmatic electrical phenomena as well as predict the behaviour of nerve and muscle cells in response to defined sets of inputs. He obtained PhD. from University of Oxford, U.K. He was associated with AIMS and IIT Bombay in his professional carrier and obtained many prestigious awards.
Nataraj Neela: Dr Neela’s research interest includes Numerical Analysis, Finite Element Methods. Presently, she is the Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Shee has the experience of successfully handling various projects funded by the Government of India. She has presented several papers in reputed Journal and Conference proceedings. She received ph. d. from the department of mathematics, IIT Delhi in 1998 on mixed finite element analysis of fourth-order elliptic source/eigenvalue problems in convex domains.
S Sathyakuma: Dr Sathyakuma have been involved in field research on mountain ungulates, Galliformes and bears in the Indian Himalaya since 1989. His research interests are the ecology and conservation of wildlife in the mountains; development of field techniques for the study and monitoring of rare and endangered species; and the wildlife of the southern Indian Ocean and Antarctica. He is involved in teaching high altitude ecology, habitat ecology, population ecology and quantitative ecology. He is presently the Co-chair of the South Asian Brown Bear Expert Team and a member of the IUCN/SSC Caprinae, Galliformes and Bear Specialist Groups.
INSA invites nominations every year for its teacher’s award. A teacher may be nominated by Fellows of INSA, IASc, NASI, Principal of a College, Vice-Chancellor of a University, Director of an Institution, a colleague or by a former student who is associated with an academic/R&D institution