Six researchers win Infosys Science Foundation prizes for 2026

Riddhipratim Basu, Associate Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR) in Bengaluru.

The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) on Thursday (November 12, 2026) announced the winners of the ‘Infosys Prize 2026’ in six categories — Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences.

Among the recipients is Riddhipratim Basu, Associate Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR) in Bengaluru.

The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000 (or its equivalent in Indian rupees). The laureates of Infosys Prize 2026 were selected by an international panel of jurors comprising renowned scholars and experts.

This year 222 applications were received compared to 150 last year, ISF Trustee Kris Gopalakrishnan said. He added that the highest number of applications were received in the Engineering and Computer Science category and the youngest winner this year is 31 years of age.

ISF said that from 2024, the prize has shifted focus to honour researchers under the age of 40, emphasising the need for early recognition of exceptional talent. “This encouragement of early career researchers will serve as an inspiration for the next generation of scholars and future innovators,” it said.

“Recognising exceptional researchers early in their careers is particularly important, as it gives them the encouragement and opportunity to pursue bold questions, challenge established thinking and make lasting contributions to their fields,” ISF President Srinath Batni said.

Karthik Sastry, Associate Professor of Economics and Public Affairs

Karthik Sastry, Associate Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, has won the award for his contributions to the field of climate change, and technological innovation, and to the study of business cycle fluctuations. “His work provides deep insights into how societies adapt to climate change through technological innovations and is likely to have far-reaching policy implications,” the jury said.

Swarun Kumar, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University

Swarun Kumar, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, has been awarded in this category for his pioneering work that extends low-power wireless networks beyond information delivery to perception and action in the physical world. He combines insights on the physics of wireless technology with novel architectures and algorithms to obtain innovative designs in connectivity, sensing, control, and actuation.

Gautam Bhatia, Adjunct Professor at Jindal Global Law School and Green Fellow at the University of New South Wales

Gautam Bhatia, Adjunct Professor at Jindal Global Law School and Green Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, has won the award in this category. The jury has described Prof. Bhatia as “an outstanding young legal scholar”, with a gift for marshalling arguments rigorously towards conclusions that seek to make the law an instrument for constructing a fair, equal, and humane society. He is the author of five books and many academic articles. He has worked in neighboring disciplines that have an impact on the law, such as macro-economics, sociology, political theory, and moral philosophy.

Isha Jain, Associate Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California

Isha Jain, Associate Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, has been awarded for her discoveries in oxygen biology, which showed that tissue damage in some mitochondrial diseases arises from excess oxygen rather than energy failure, and for turning fundamental biochemical insights into new therapeutic strategies. This includes designing a small-molecule to reduce oxygen levels and vitamin-based treatments for inherited metabolic disorders.

The prize in the category went to Riddhipratim Basu, Associate Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR) in Bengaluru. Prof. Basu is being awarded for his outstanding contributions to probability theory and statistical physics. His work resolved the longstanding slow-bond problem and established new large deviations asymptotics. He has settled conjectures on fluctuations for percolation models including those that are not exactly solvable. He also developed explicit combinatorial descriptions of Wilson loop expectations in two-dimensional lattice Yang–Mills theory in an asymptotic strong-coupling regime.

Manoj Kumar Joshi, an experimental physicist and Assistant Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

Manoj Kumar Joshi, an experimental physicist and Assistant Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), won in this category. Prof. Joshi’s pioneering work is with trapped ions, creating programmable quantum machines that reveal how complex quantum systems behave, and turning the promise of quantum simulation into experimental reality. Quantum computers and simulators promise to unlock discoveries beyond the reach of classical computers, transforming our understanding of matter and opening new possibilities in materials science and chemistry, the jury noted.