Tuesday, September 22, 2009

2 Indian Intellectuals among 24 MacArthur Foundation Fellows

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today named 24 new MacArthur Fellows for 2009. The new Fellows work across a broad spectrum of endeavors. They include an infectious disease physician, an ornithologist, a painter, a photojournalist, a bridge engineer, a climate scientist, an economist, a papermaker, a mental health lawyer, and a poet. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future.

Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard University, Cambridge, is a mathematician who applies complex mathematical analyses to a variety of seemingly simple, but vexing, questions across the physical and biological sciences — how cloth folds when draped, how skin wrinkles, how flags flutter, how Venus flytraps snap closed. Through his explorations of shape and motion, in many different material types, sizes, and time frames, Mahadevan strives to identify commonalities of the fundamental nonlinear and nonequilibrium behavior driving them. One line of his research considers the relationship between the biochemistry and mechanics of structural molecules that form polymers, such as actin, within the cell. These investigations have parallels in his work on the hydrodynamics and elasticity of thin films and sheets (e.g., made of fabric). Mahadevan also considers properties of materials at larger scales, such as cell shape, adhesion, and migration in developmental biology, avalanche dynamics, or the role of water in determining the tensile characteristics of plants. Though he searches for and elucidates mathematical principles underpinning these complex behaviors, his focus remains on developing hypotheses that can be confirmed or rejected empirically in the lab. The unusually broad scope of his theoretical and experimental investigations defies facile categorization, but they are linked by an effort to discover the geometric and mechanical principles that determine the behavior of complex biological and physical systems.

L. Mahadevan received a B.Tech. (1986) from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, an M.S. (1987) from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. (1992) and Ph.D. (1995) from Stanford University. Since 2003, he has been affiliated with Harvard University, where he is currently the De Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics. He served previously as an assistant and associate professor (1996-2000) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems (2001-2003) in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and a fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He holds visiting professorships at the University of Oxford’s Mathematics Institute and the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Maneesh Agrawala of University of California, Berkeley is a computer scientist designing visual interfaces that enhance our ability to understand large quantities of complex information. Working at the intersection of visualization, human-computer interaction, and computer graphics, Agrawala draws on cognitive psychology to identify the key perceptual and design principles underlying graphic illustrations. His algorithms automatically generate legible and effective designs for a variety of data types. As a graduate student, Agrawala developed LineDrive, a fully automated system for rendering route maps that both takes into account myriad cognitive factors involved in a user’s navigation of routes and adapts cartographic techniques for emphasizing essential information. The resulting maps resemble hand-drawn sketches in which unnecessary details are simplified or omitted and a larger scale is used at key locations to avoid confusion. Agrawala also developed a system that generates accurate and intelligible step-by-step assembly instructions for everyday items as well as complex machines (e.g., aircraft engines). The system utilizes exploded views — so that individual components of the object are spatially separated — in order to provide the user with a more direct understanding of the actual steps required for assembly. Agrawala and colleagues subsequently expanded on this work to create a program that produces illustrations of complex, three-dimensional objects, such as anatomical models. The program includes an interface that allows users to explore the spatial relationships among components by isolating parts of an object to magnify, expand, or collapse. Agrawala’s novel approach to visualization and computer communication in these and many other projects is transforming how we use, synthesize, and comprehend the ever-increasing volume of digital information we encounter in our daily lives.

Maneesh Agrawala received a B.S. (1994) and a Ph.D. (2002) from Stanford University. He was affiliated with Microsoft Research (2002-2006) prior to joining the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he is currently an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. The Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.

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