Professor Anunay Samanta from the School of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been chosen for the prestigious Visitor’s Award, 2020 for Research in Physical Sciences.

The Award, which comes with a citation and a cash prize, will be presented by the President of India as the Visitor of the Central Universities in the Rashtrapati Bhawan at a later date.

The award comes in recognition of Prof Samanta’s work on employing ultrafast and single-molecule spectroscopic techniques, stated a UoH release on Thursday.

The President of India, in his capacity as a Visitor of the Central Universities, annually confers Visitor’s Awards to promote healthy competition amongst Central Universities and motivate them to adopt best practices from around the world in pursuit of excellence.

Complimenting Prof Samanta on being chosen for the prestigious award, UoH vice chancellor Prof Arun Agarwal said, “This is a reflection of the high-quality research being carried out at the university and this would motivate others to follow”.

Prof Samanta has been at the School of Chemistry since January 1990. His current research focuses on ultrafast dynamics and single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy of the perovskite nanocrystals and deep eutectic solvents. His pioneering research work has resulted in the publication of more than 190 papers in reputed peer-reviewed journals.

An elected Fellow of all three National Science Academies of India, he is also recipient of many national and international awards, which include the J.C. Bose National Fellowship (DST, 2010 – 2024), Acharya J.C. Ghosh Memorial Award (Indian Chemical Society, 2019), India Citation Award (Thomson Reuters, 2012), Raman-Mizushima Lecture Award (DST-JSPS, 2014), APA Award (Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Association, 2018), Silver Medal (Chemical Research Society of India, 2015), and Prof. Sadhan Basu Memorial Lecture Award (INSA, 2017).

He is also serving as the National Coordinator of the UGC Faculty Research Promotion Schemes since 2013 and as the Editor (Chemistry) of the Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy since 2015.