IISc alumnus Prof KR Sreenivasan and Dr Sudha Sreenivasan have made a generous donation of $100,000 to the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, to promote scientific discourse related to the topic of consciousness.
Prof Sreenivasan is the Dean Emeritus of NYU Tandon School of Engineering and an IISc Distinguished Alumni awardee. With this support, the Centre for Neuroscience will start a NeuroConsciouness initiative, which will conduct a flagship workshop and lectures by eminent scientists and philosophers working on this topic. The Centre will also provide small seed grants to faculty to help generate preliminary data to jumpstart larger research grants. The participating faculty will also undertake individual projects to pursue cutting-edge research on various aspects of consciousness.
The Centre for Neuroscience, established in 2009, has 10 faculty and 3 faculty fellows working to understand the brain at a variety of levels, from molecules to cognition. The diversity of experimental approaches and model organisms at the Centre, along with the diverse academic backgrounds of the faculty themselves, make it ideally suited to study this vast and interesting topic.
About Prof Sreenivasan
Prof Sreenivasan was the Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering from 2013–2018. From 2003 to 2009, he was the director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, for nearly seven years. Earlier, he taught at the University of Maryland for about a year and a half, as Distinguished University Professor, Glenn L. Martin Professor of Engineering and Professor of Physics, and as the Director of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology. Prior to that, Sreenivasan taught at Yale since 1979 as a faculty member, first in the department of engineering and applied science and subsequently in several other capacities.
Prof Sreenivasan has been elected to the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), and the African Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Accademia die Lincei in Italy. Among his other responsibilities, Professor Sreenivasan overseas the Center for Space Science at NYU Abu Dhabi.
About Dr Sudha Sreenivasan
Dr Sudha Sreenivasan has practised Adult Psychiatry, particularly relating to Psychotic Disorders, for some 40 years in Connecticut, 25 years or so of them in association with Yale University. She is currently the Medical Director, Behavioral Health, Optimus Health Care, Inc., Stamford. She has a keen interest in consciousness studies.
For more information:
- NeuroConsciousness initiative at CNS IISc
- Webpage of Centre for Neuroscience, IISc
- Webpage of Prof KR Sreenivasan, NYU
Contact
- Prof Supratim Ray (sray at iisc.ac.in), Coordinator, NeuroConsciouness Initiative
- Prof SP Arun (chair.cns at iisc.ac.in), Chair, Centre for Neuroscience