He has been bestowed with this award for his significant contributions have been in the area of Mechanics.

More about Sanjay Mittal

Sanjay Mittal is a Professor of computational fluid dynamics in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. After doing his B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur in 1988, he got enrolled atUniversity of Minnesota, Twin Cities for M.S. program. He then received his Ph.D. and worked as a research associate under Prof. Tayfun E. Tezduyar. After working for 2 years at Army High Performance Computing center he returned to India and joined IIT Kanpur in the year of 1994 as an Assistant Professor.

• Professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.


• He was instrumental in establishing the High Performance Computing (HPC) facility at IIT Kanpur. He also heads the National Wind Tunnel Facility.


• His most significant contribution has been in the area of Bluff Body Flows (flows past blunt bodies associated with large unsteady separation and leading to large fluid forces).


• He is among a very few researchers in India who have worked on and used Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for fluid flows.


• He also has worked in the area of sports aerodynamics. His team was able to bring out the aerodynamic difference between a synthetic shuttle cock and duck-feather.

GD Birla Award

• It is an annual scientific award bestowed upon Indian scientist below the age of 50, living and working in India for their outstanding scientific research, mostly during past 5 years.


• The award is given Indian scientist in any branch of science and technology including medical science, basic as well as applied.


• It was established 1991 by the K. K. Birla Foundation in the honour of philanthropist Ghanshyam Das Birla.


• The award carries cash prize of 2.5 lakh rupees and a citation. The selection of the award is made by a board comprising eminent scientists.

GD Birla Award Recipients

Year	Recipient	Field	Institute
2015	Sanjay Mittal	Scientific Research	Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
2014	Sanjeev Galande	Scientific Research	Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Pune
2013	Rajesh Gopakumar	Quantum field theory and string theory	Harish Chandra Research Institute
2012	Nibir Mandal	Structural geology	Jadavpur University
2011	Tapas Kumar Kundu	Biochemistry	Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
2010	Subhasis Chaudhuri	Electrical engineering	Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
2009	Manindra Agrawal	Computer science	Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
2008	Raghavan Varadrajan	Biophysics	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
2007	Santanu Bhattacharya	Chemistry	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
2006	Sriram Ramaswamy	Physics	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
2005	D.D. Sarma	Nanotechnology	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
2004	Arjun M. Jayannvar	Physics	Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar
2003	Thanu Padmanabhan	Astrophysics	Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune
2002	P.P. Majumdar	Human genetics	Indian Statistical Institute
2001	Seyed E. Hasnain	Medical genetics	University of Hyderabad
2000	A.K. Sood	Experimental physics	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
1999	Sankar K. Pal	Computer engineering	Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
1998	Not awarded	NA	NA
1997	Biman Bagchi	Structural chemistry	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
1996	Ashoke Sen	Theoretical physics	Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad
1995	Girish S. Agarwal	Quantum optics	Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad
1994	Padmanabhan Balaram	Biochemistry	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
1993	R.A. Mashelkar	Polymer science	Council of Scientific & Industrial Research
1992	Goverdhan Mehta	Organic chemistry	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
1991	Asis Datta	Molecular biology	National Centre for Plant Genome Research, JNU

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