National award to MSU professor

Awarded prestigious Teacher’s award for 2018 by INSA

Professor Prafulla K Jha of the Department of Physics, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, is awarded the prestigious Teacher’s award for the year 2018 by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA).

The award has been instituted by INSA to recognise and honour teachers who have shown consistently high level of teaching and research and has also inspired students to take up careers in Science and Technology. The award carries a scroll, a cash award of Rs. 50,000/- and a onetime book grant up to Rs. 20,000. The award is considered as one of the top recognitions for science teachers and academics in the country.

The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) was established in January 1935 with the aim of advancing science in India and harnessing scientific knowledge for the cause of humanity and national welfare. This national award comes in recognition of Prof. Jha’s efforts to facilitate the valuable, consistent and high level of physics teaching.

Being one of the 12 awardees of this year M. S. University of Baroda bags its first INSA teacher awardee which is a matter of proud for the University. His valuable contributions toward scientific community constitute a long list depicting his successful research throughout his carrier.

His field of research spans a wide spectrum of condensed matter research area from low dimensional materials to materials at extreme conditions covering subjects of drug designing, energy materials, geological materials, electronic materials and so on.

Prof. Prafulla K Jha has been earlier awarded prestigious TWAS-UNESCO associate ship twice and regular associate ship of International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, in his career to carry research work abroad. Prof Jha is primarily known for developing computational condensed matter physics laboratory for High end calculations under DST, Department of Atomic Energy and UGC Projects.

The CCMP Lab at Department of Physics, headed by Prof. Jha, is in principle, a theory group working on the cutting edge research of the materials using the ab-initio method and model theories to remain at forefront in the field. The theoretical techniques are a combination of analytic and computational methods. His lab has collaboration with both experimental and theoretical groups from National and International laboratories.

He has trained over 20 students for obtaining their doctorate degree in Physics under his guidance thereby building a big research group. He has completed and also currently involved in various National and International research projects.