2008 - Annual Report

Abstract

At the time of writing this foreword, Prof. Alladi Ramakrishnan, who founded this Institute in 1962, passed away on 7 June 2008 in Gainesville, Florida, USA. Prof. Ramakrishnan founded the Institute in 1962 and functioned as its Director till his retirement from here in 1983. In those two decades of his association with the Institute, Prof. Ramakrishnan inspired several youngsters in and around Chennai. This report contains a short biography of Prof. Ramakrishnan. Five of our members were given external awards including the J C Bose medal, the Homi Bhabha Gold medal, distinguished teacher award and fellowship to the Indian Academy of Sciences. These include X workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP), ATM workshop on Algebraic Topology, Cipher-Retreat on Cryptology, a workshop on Non-commutative Geometry and Ergodic Theory and operator algebras and a workshop on Algorithms and Complexity. The Institute also organised some off site conferences, namely, The sixth international conference on Gravitation and Cosmology, The Interface of Life, a School on Biomolecular Simulation, an international conference followed by a workshop in Statistical Physics approach to Multi-disciplinary problems and an International Conference on nano science and technology. The Subashish Nag Memorial lecture was given this year by Prof Robert C. Penner of the University of Southern California. The Institute Seminar Week has by now become a tradition here and this year too there was active and enthusiastic participation by our Research Fellows, both pre and post doctoral, and faculty. There were 30 talks in this event. This report was compiled through the efforts of a Annual Report Committee comprising of Drs Krishna Maddaly, V Arvind, Sudeshna Sinha, Paul Pandian and Mr Parthiban.