Nobel laureate Randy Schekman felicitated six laureates with a pure gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of USD 100,000
Derhadun: The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) today awarded the winners of the Infosys Prize 2025 at a felicitation ceremony in Bengaluru. In its 17th year, the prize recognizes researchers under the age of 40, underscoring the importance of early recognition for exceptional talent. The winners were conferred the prize for their stellar contributions across six categories: Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences. The winners were felicitated by Chief Guest Prof. Randy Schekman, 2013 Nobel laureate in Physiology /Medicine, Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, with a pure gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of USD 100,000.
The event was attended by distinguished scientists, eminent academicians from around the globe, business leaders, young scholars, and students. Trustees of the Infosys Science Foundation including, Mr. K. Dinesh (President, Board of Trustees), Mr. Narayana Murthy, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Mr. S. D. Shibulal, Mr. Mohandas Pai, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, and Mr. Salil Parekh were present at the award ceremony.
Commenting on the occasion, Chief Guest Prof. Randy Schekman, said, “I am delighted to offer my congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Infosys Prize representing the finest achievements of scholars whose work impacts India in diverse fields of basic and applied natural and social sciences. As one of the great civilizations and the largest democracy in the world, India takes a prime position of leadership in scholarly achievement here in India and abroad. I witness daily the brilliance and industriousness of the Indian people in contributions to the health and prosperity of the world community. In an increasingly polarized world, it is refreshing to pause and reflect on the constructive impact of India’s finest scholars.”
- Dinesh, President, Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundation, said, “We take pride in celebrating emerging researchers whose work reflects the evolving strength and promise of science today. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the Infosys Prize 2025, whose achievements underscore the vital role of research and discovery in advancing society. The ingenuity of their vision and work highlights the capacity of scientific research to address complex global challenges in a unique way. Their accomplishments reaffirm our conviction that science continues on a promising path toward a more sustainable and resilient world. To foster meaningful research collaborations, we have continued the Infosys Prize Sabbatical program by inviting winners from outside India to spend a month in Indian institutions. At the Infosys Science Foundation, we remain committed to supporting excellence in research and inspiring future generations.”
As part of the Infosys Prize Sabbatical program, a laureate of the Infosys Prize in any category who does not reside in India is required to spend 30 days, at a time of their choosing, in the calendar year following the announcement at an Indian institution of their choice. This is done with an aim to encourage collaboration among the laureates and the science community in India.
On January 09, the fifth edition of the Infosys Prize Winners’ Symposium was held at the Taj West End. The laureates presented their award-winning work to an invited audience of their peers and senior members of academia.
The winners were chosen by jury panels headed by eminent academics: Prof. Kaushik Basu (Cornell University) for Economics; Prof. Jayathi Y. Murthy (President, Oregon State University) for Engineering and Computer Science; Prof. Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia University) for Humanities and Social Sciences; Prof. Mriganka Sur (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for Life Sciences; Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare (University of California, Los Angeles) for Mathematical Sciences; and Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology) for Physical Sciences.
The winners of the Infosys Prize 2025 in the six categories are:
Economics
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Economics is awarded to Nikhil Agarwal, Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his pioneering contributions to market design, including the development and implementation of pathbreaking methodology for empirical studies of allocation mechanisms, including school choice, medical residency, and kidney exchanges. Much of economics assumes that the invisible hand of the market brings about prices where demand equals supply. While this is likely true for apples and oranges, this is not the way those needing kidneys find those willing to supply kidneys, or students seeking college admission find the college that will admit them. These matching problems are hugely important but inadequately understood. Agarwal’s work has transformed this rudimentary literature into one anchored in data, providing new insights into policy design.
Engineering and Computer Science
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Engineering and Computer Science is awarded to Sushant Sachdeva, Associate Professor (CSC) of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the University of Toronto, for his deep insights into mathematical optimization and the resolution of longstanding open questions in algorithmic theory that has established new standards on achievable performance in computational problems affecting information flows across societal lifelines, including the internet, transportation, and communication networks. He is a pioneer in theoretical computer science whose fundamental contributions have profoundly impacted many algorithmic challenges underlying modern society.
Humanities and Social Sciences
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Humanities and Social Sciences is awarded to Andrew Ollett, Associate Professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, who is the world’s foremost scholar of the Prakrit languages in this generation. His book, Language of the Snakes, is a magisterial analysis of the cultural roles of Prakrit in tandem with Sanskrit and the Indian vernaculars over the last two thousand years. Andrew Ollett’s linguistic mastery and knowledge is breathtaking, ranging from detailed contributions to the study of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Kannada, Tamil, Old Javanese, and Chinese, in addition to his knowledge of the modern European languages and his training in Greek and Latin. Scholarship such as Ollett’s in Sanskrit literature and other Indian languages helps us understand the remarkable cosmopolitan reach of Indian culture in places as distant as the farthest corners of Southeast Asia.
Life Sciences
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Life Sciences is awarded to Anjana Badrinarayanan, Associate Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, for her pioneering contributions to understanding mechanisms of genome maintenance and repair. Through innovative live-cell imaging combined with genetic and cell biological approaches, her work has revealed fundamental principles of how DNA damage is repaired, demonstrated mutagenesis in non-dividing cells, and identified novel pathways of mitochondrial DNA damage responses, illuminating principles central to life and evolution. By uncovering universal strategies that cells use to safeguard their genomes, she has profoundly advanced the fields of genome and microbial biology, establishing new directions for research into genome stability and cellular resilience.
Mathematical Sciences
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Mathematical Sciences is awarded to Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Associate Professor at the School of Mathematics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, for his powerful and original work that links two distinct areas of mathematics—the dynamics of Kleinian group actions and the iteration of holomorphic and anti-holomorphic maps in complex dynamics. His results have reshaped our understanding of conformal dynamics, an area of study that has important implications across physics, fluid dynamics, and even data science.
Physical Sciences
The Infosys Prize 2025 in Physical Sciences is awarded to Karthish Manthiram, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), for his pioneering work on sustainable electrochemical routes to essential chemicals. His breakthroughs in lithium-mediated ammonia synthesis and oxygen-atom transfer catalysis have transformed our understanding of electrified chemical manufacturing, demonstrating how renewable electricity can drive selective, efficient synthesis of chemicals that are fundamental to agriculture and industry.
