2019 - Annual Report

Abstract

During the period April 2018 - March 2019, the Institute organized or co-sponsored several workshops and conferences. Specifically, the IndiaEMBO Symposium on Regulatory Epigenomics: From Large Data to Useful Models was an international conference featuring cutting-edge research, primarily funded by European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and DBT-Wellcome India Alliance, with local support and some funding from IMSc. Mechanics of Complex Matter: Criticality, intermittency and collective behaviour was a workshop that provided graduate students and researchers with an exposure to the current developments in understanding how various materials, both soft and hard, in crystalline and amorphous forms, respond to mechanical perturbations of various kinds leading to plasticity, fracture, flow etc. Nagarajfest was a conference on algebraic geometry, commutative algebra and number theory. An ACM-India Summer School on Graph Theory and Algorithms was co-organized by IMSc faculty members and held at PSG tech Coimbatore. An international conference on Algebras, Combinatorics, and Representation Theory was jointly organized by IMSc and IISER Thiruvananthapuram. The Stellar Legacy of Prof. Meghnad Saha: from Society to the Cosmos was a conference organized on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Meghnad Saha. The workshop on Science, Journalism, Media: Communicating Science in a Changing India brought together scientists and science journalists and led to many fruitful discussions. We note with a lot of satisfaction that our outreach programmes like ‘Teachers’ Enrichment Workshop’, ‘Summer School Students Workshop’, ‘Facets‘, ‘kaNita-kAnakam“, ‘Enriching Mathematics Education’, ‘Zero shadow day’, ‘IMSc Open day’, ‘UN International Day for Girls and Women in Science’ and ‘Science at the Sabha’ are increasingly popular. Over the years, these events have been attracting more and more students and teachers, mainly from nearby regions, but also some from across the country. The outreach related activities in the Institute are the initiative of several institute members. Their untiring efforts, enthusiastically supported by the IMSc administration, PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, to make scientific research accessible and exciting to students and teachers at various levels, deserves all praise. Research productivity of the members of the Institute has been excellent throughout the year. Several high quality publications have been reported in national and international journals, and some of the research work carried out has also been presented in international conferences. A total of 16 students were awarded ‘PhD’ degree, 3 students have submitted their PhD theses. 7 students were awarded ‘MSc by Research’ degree, under the supervision of our faculty. There are several ongoing collaborations between other institutions, both national and international, and research groups of IMSc. Among these, we mention a few. Decongesting India’s Transportation Network using mobile devices is an ITRA-Media Lab Asia Project involving principal investigators from IMSc, IIT Madras and IIM Bangalore. The India-based Neutrino Observatory is a multi-institute collaboration of which IMSc is a part. IMSc is also part of the Belle II Collaboration which is a multinational collaborative effort, involving 60 institutions from all over the world, to understand phenomena accessible at the KEK-B collider in Tsukuba, Japan. As a Max Planck Partner Group in Mathematical Biology, IMSc has been collaborating with MPIMIS Leizig on the study of biological networks. During 2018-2019, a total of 34 lecture courses were conducted at the Institute. Additionally, a course of lectures for the undergraduate programme of CMI. Awards and honors bestowed on our faculty for their contributions: V. Ravindran was elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, for 2018, by the Indian National Science Academy. Parameswaran Sankaran was elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, for 2018, by the Indian National Science Academy. Areejit Samal was designated Research Ambassador, for the period 2018-2022, by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) to promote bilateral cooperation between Germany and India. Saket Saurabh was awarded SwarnaJayanti Fellowship, for 2018, by the DST, India. Sayantan Sharma was awarded Ramanujan Fellowship, for 2018, by the SERB, DST, Government of India.