Asha SK from CSIR-NCL; Ruta Kale from TIFR-NCRA. TWO women scientists from Pune have been selected for the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) awards for this year given annually by the Department of Science and Technology.
Ruta Kale from TIFR – National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) and Asha SK from CSIR – National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) were the awardees under the Physical and Chemical Sciences categories, respectively. The DST announced the winners on the occasion of International Day for Women and Girls in Science on Friday.
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly announced this day for the achievement of full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls across the globe, thus aimed at achieving gender equality and women empowerment.
Kale, a Reader at NCRA, was among the nine women scientists who bagged the SERB Women Excellence award 2022. She studies the evolution of radio galaxies and radio astronomy techniques. With a PhD on ‘A multi wave length study of radio halos and relics in clusters of galaxies’ from the Raman Research Institute, she has served as a DST – INSPIRE faculty at NCRA between 2015 – 2017.
Asha heads the Polymer Science and Engineering Division at NCL. Her research group works on developing higher ordered polymer architectures that have applications in opto-electronic devices like lasers, photo diodes, solar cells and LEDs.
The Excellence awards are presented to scientists below 40 years of age whose work has been recognised by either of the Indian science academies. DST supports with a sum of Rs 15 lakh for three years for a project.
Other SERB Excellence awardees this year under Life Sciences were Ashima Bhaskar from International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Yogita Adlakha of Translational Health Science and Technology and Nitika Sandhu from Punjab Agricultural University. Neha Khatri from CSIR – Central Scientific Instruments Organisation and Mudrika -NXEKhandelwal from IIT-Hyderabad were selected from Engineering stream.
Chandini U (Physical Sciences) from Indian Institute of Science, Binita Pathak (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) of Dibrugarh University and Debashree Chakraborty (Chemical Sciences) of NIT-Suratkal were the other winners.
SERB Fellows are given a research grant of Rs 10 lakh for three years in addition to Rs 15,000 fellowship every month during this period.
The 2022 Fellows are Ishu Sarogi from IISER-Bhopal and Debashree Ghosh of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science under Chemical Sciences. Premlata Jena, Anubha Gupta and Lakshminarasamma N for Engineering Sciences representing IIT Roorkee, New Delhi and Madras, respectively. Under Life Sciences, the awardees include Neeti Mishra from ICGEB, and Ellora Sen from National Brain Research Centre.
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