IISc convocation 2024
Credit: DH photo
Bengaluru: Gold medals were awarded to 57 students for academic excellence at the Indian Institute of Science’s 2024 convocation on Monday.
A total of 1,136 students graduated across various disciplines.
Piyush Sharma from Panipat, Haryana, currently a PhD scholar at Purdue University, US, recalled his “tremendous journey” at IISc as an MTech student.
“After my PhD, in which I am studying methods to transport hydrogen, I want to come back to India and establish energy centres in small towns that make sustainable, affordable fuel for farmers, with reduced risk,” he said after receiving the Prof NR Kuloor Memorial Medal in Chemical Engineering.
Victor A Ajisafe, a Nigerian scholar who won the Prof KP Abraham Medal (PhD in Materials Engineering), aspires to pursue advanced studies on the medicinal properties of snails and molluscs.
Vemuri Harini, the Prof NS Lakshmana Rao medallist in MTech (Civil Engineering), said IISc boosted her confidence as a woman in science. She is pursuing a PhD on extreme rainfall events at IISc’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research.
Jayant Kathuria, winner of the Prof SV Sastry Memorial Medal, has been working with the Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance under the Ministry of Defence since 2022.
Raghuram Sundararajan from Chennai, a Rohan Memorial medallist in the four-year BS (Mathematics) programme, said he learned to balance academics with co-curricular activities at IISc. He is now a PhD scholar at the University of Chicago. Since IISc’s inception in 1909, over 31,000 students have graduated from the institute.