Physical Sciences:

The Infosys Prize for Physical Sciences is awarded to Professor A.  Ajayaghosh for his pioneering development of methods for the construction of functional nanomaterials, which can be employed as components in energy conversion devices and in powerful substance selective optical sensors.

Professor A. Ajayaghosh is a Senior Scientist at the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), CSIR, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

Jury Citation:Prof. Ajayaghosh has done landmark work that has advanced supramolecular chemistry, most especially in investigations that have led to the design and synthesis of molecular assemblies called organogels, a new class of materials with great potential for photonic and electronic applications. He has demonstrated that these self-assembled nanomaterials can be used to control the electronic energy transfer processes, paving the way for the development of superior light harvesting devices. He has synthesized and characterized nanomaterials that can be employed for energy conversion and in optical sensors to detect tiny amounts of TNT and other very dangerous substances.

Social Sciences:

The Infosys Prize for Social Sciences - Economics is awarded to Professor Arunava Sen for his game-theoretic analyses of mechanism design for implementing social choice rules, when individuals have diverse information and incentives.

Arunaya Sen is the Professor, Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India.

Jury Citation:Prof. Sen’sresearch recognizes that information pertinent to economic policy design is held by individuals who may benefit by misrepresenting it, and that policy implementation is constrained by the freedom of individuals to act. Therefore, it has large implications on real-world policy-making. His main contribution (in joint work with Prof. DilipAbreu) shows that any social choice rule can be approximated by one that is a Nash equilibrium of such individual interaction.