Youngest Bhatnagar Award winner is a Kolkata Mathematician

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award goes to the youngest scientist from Bengal and yes she has created history. Neena Gupta from Kolkata who is also working in Kolkata happens to be the youngest to receive the prestigious Bhatnagar Award. She is not even 35 years of age and previously it was MS Raghunathan of TIFR who was the youngest to win this award in 1977 at the age of 36.

Gupta is a mathematician and teaches commutative algebra at the Indian Statistical Institute of Kolkata. Since she was in school, she had loved mathematics and it is amazing how her mother taught mathematics to her till class X sowing the seeds of love for a subject that is usually dreaded by students. In her own words Neena Gupta told in an interview yesterday that the Maths phobia we find so common in children is because they are not introduced to the subject properly. 

A student of Khalsa School Kolkata and then graduating from Bethune College, Gupta did her masters and PhD from ISI Kolkata. She is also the 3rd woman to receive the Bhatnagar Award for Mathematics.