Former ICTP Director Honored

Former ICTP Director Katepalli Sreenivasan was recently honoured with the American Physical Society's 2021 Fluid Dynamics Prize, "For fundamental contributions to fluid dynamics, especially turbulence from quantum to astrophysical scales".

Sreenivasan has had a long career at the intersection of engineering and physics. He earned a PhD in aerospace engineering at Bangalore University before developing to encompass applied physics more broadly, focussing on fluid dynamics,  fluid mechanics, and turbulence. His work includes well-known contributions to the scaling problems, as well as expansions in the understanding of the processes of mixing, convection, and quantum turbulence.

Sreenivasan is now the Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering, and Professor in Physics, at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University (NYU). Previously the President of the Polytechnic Institute of NYU and the Dean of Engineering (where?) as well as the former Director of ICTP, his academic career includes work at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and the University of Maryland, among many other institutions.

He has received numerous honours for his work, including the  Otto Laporte Memorial Award of American Physical Society, the National Order of Scientific Merit (the highest scientific honor) by the Brazilian Government and the Academy of Sciences, the UNESCO Medal for Promoting International Scientific Cooperation and World Peace from the World Heritage Centre, Florence, Italy, the Dwight Nicholson Medal of the American Physical Society, and the the 2009 AAAS award for International Scientific Cooperation.

He was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the African Academy of Sciences, and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Italy, among others.