Sriram Ramaswamy
Sriram Rajagopal Ramaswamy (born 10 November 1957) FRS is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and was on leave (2012–16) as Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences in Hyderabad. Education. Ramaswamy completed high school at the Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, and then moved to the University of Maryland where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics with high honours in 1977. He completed his PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1983. He completed postdoctoral research at the University  of Pennsylvania. Research. Ramaswamy is a theoretician whose research investigates nonequilibrium statistical physics, soft matter, condensed matter physics and biological physics. His research helped found the field of active matter, which studies the motility and related collective behaviour of objects that convert local energy input into autonomous motion. He is widely known for formulating the hydrodynamic equations governing the alignment, flow, mechanics and statistical properties of suspensions of self-propelled creatures, on scales from a cell to the ocean. Key predictions—that macroscopically aligned flocks of swimming bacteria are impossible, and that the addition of swimmers to a fluid can  make the viscosity arbitrarily small—have been confirmed in recent experiments. His insight into nonliving imitations of self-propulsion has led to design principles for chemotactic colloids, the first experiments observing giant number fluctuations in flocks, and the creation of flocks with a tiny minority of motile constituents. Awards and honours. Among the awards he has received for his research are the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2000 and the Infosys Prize for Physical Sciences in 2011. He also served on the Physical Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2014. He was elected a Fellow  of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016. He was awarded one of the H K Firodia awards for 2016.