Each year, Scientific India goes through a year selection process to identify the most inspired scientists and researchers whose ideas will transform the future. Here are 2017's best and brightest.
10. Dr. Bhushan Toley
Bhushan J Toley, Assistant professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IISc, has won a Grand Challenges Exploration grant of US $100,000 funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The award is for the development of new technology that could improve the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases in rural areas. The foundation release stated, “Sputum, urine, and blood contain the DNA of infectious agents that can be used to diagnose diseases to aid treatment and help prevent spread. Diagnosis is generally performed in specialized laboratories, but the DNA can be damaged during transport from remote locations due to the length of time it takes or exposure to high temperature.
9. Prof. Ogale Satishchandra
Satish Ogale, a scientist currently at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), and his students innovatively installed solar cells on hats worn by farmers and used the energy generated to charge their cellphones. On November 1, Ogale, along with his team of Indian and foreign scientists, was awarded the Newton Prize for 2017 for developing low-cost solution-processed next-generation solar cells.
8. Dr Arindam Ghosh
Dr. Arindam Ghosh, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr Ghosh and his team discovered a new type of electrical conductor which was theoretically predicted nearly 20 years ago to exist at the edge of graphene, the planar hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. The unique property these “edge states” is that they allow the flow of charge without impedance, even at room temperature and above.
7. Prof. Prasanta K. Panigrahi
Prof. Prasanta K. Panigrahi , Professor of Physics, IISER-Kolkata. Prof. Prasanta and his team has developed an artificial intelligence-based algorithm which help in diagnosing early-stage cervical cancer using artificial intelligence. The algorithm developed by the team not only differentiates normal and precancerous tissue but also makes it possible to tell different stages of progression of the disease within a few minutes and with accuracy exceeding 95%.
6. Prof. Joydeep Bagchi
Prof. Joydeep Bagchi from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India. Prof. Bagchi works in radio astronomy, high-definition imaging of large-scale and faint radio sources. Prof. Bagchi is leading author of paper in which For the first time in the country, Indian scientists has claimed to have discovered an "extremely large supercluster of galaxies", Saraswati, in the universe.
5. P Kunhikrishnan
P Kunhikrishnan, Director at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR. P Kunhikrishnan joined ISRO in 1986, Kunhikrishnan was responsible for the flight certification of all the avionics systems of launch vehicles like the PSLV and GSLV. Under P Kunhikrishnan leadership since 2010, the PSLV project completed more than 13 successful flights without any glitches.
4. S Somnath
S Somnath, Director Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC). Under S Somnath the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre built the liquid rocket stages for the PSLV rocket and the bigger GSLV. He was also responsible for the successful sub-orbital test flight of the GSLV Mk3 LVM3-X mission.
3. Dr K Sivan, Director
Dr K Sivan, Director VSCC. One of Dr K Sivan major recent achievements was designing of PSLV rocket that had put all the 104 satellites in orbit was designed here. He designed software called SITARA, which Isro uses for simulating trajectories of rockets. He also led the RLV-TD project and was involved in its design qualification, aerodynamic characterisation and hardware development. The PSLV-C37 launch carried innovative experiments such as using the IRNSS navigation system for predicting the orbit of the satellites.
2. Dr S Christopher
Dr S Christopher is an Indian scientist who currently serves as Chairman of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Formerly he was director of the Centre for Airborne Systems. He leads DRDO to achieve remarkable goals in year 2107.
1. Mr. Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar
Mr Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar, Distinguished Scientist (Apex) and Director, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, assumed the office of the Secretary, Department of Space, Chairman, Space Commission and Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on January 14, 2015. ISRO is again at top in Indian science research. ISRO has achieved remarkable goals in the last year. Mr Alur Seelin Kiran Kumar, Distinguished Scientist (Apex), Chairman, Space Commission and Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He leads ISRO to achieve remarkable goals in year 2107.
Note: We have calculated the score on the basis of their research news hits and TV, radio appearances in the past 12 months, plus social media. Finally we scored our candidates on their impact.