Bhubaneswar: The Biju Patnaik Award for Scientific Excellence for the year 2020 will be conferred on NISER, Bhubaneswar, director Sudhakar Panda, the Odisha Bigyan Academy (OBA) announced on Thursday.
It carries a cash award of Rs 2 lakh along with citation and memento.
Panda did his PhD from the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar in 1988 and his postdoctoral research work at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (1988-1990), I.C.T.P, Trieste, Italy (1990-1992) and University of Groningen, The Netherlands (1992-93). He joined as faculty at the HRI Allahabad in 1993 and held the position of Dean of Administration from 2009 to 2014. After that, he was appointed as the Director, Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. He was appointed to the post of Director, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, for a period of five years in 2018. His current research interests are in the areas of String theory, Cosmology, Finite Temperature Field Theory, Conformal Field Theory, Gravity and Supergravity, and Neutrino Physics.
Similarly, Samanta Chandra Sekahar Award will be conferred on Luna Samanta of Ravenshaw University; Chief Scientist, CSIR-IMMT, Bhubaneswar, Danda Srinivas Rao; Anup Kumar Panda of NIT-Rourkela and Director, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, Saroj Kanta Barik. They will receive a cash award of Rs. 1 lakh along with citation and memento.
In the Young Scientists category, the awardees are Shasank Sekhar Swain of ICMR-RMRC, Bhubaneswar, Nibedita Dash and Satyaprasad P Senanayak of NISER, Bhubaneswar, and Jnana Ranjan Senapati of NIT-Rourkela.
Sangeeta Rath and Himansu Sekahar Fatesingh have been picked for Prana Krushna Parija Popular Science Book Award, the official release said, adding that the awards were announced with the approval of the Department of Science and Technology.
The young scientists and the authors will receive cash award of Rs. 25,000 with citation and memento, it added.
