24 September 2026
Mahan Mj, Professor at the School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural KRS Sastry Prize instituted by the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
The KRS Sastry Prize was established due to the generosity of late KR Shankaranarayana Sastry, a mathematics enthusiast and well-wisher of IISc. It will be awarded every four years to an Indian mathematician working in the country for their long-term contribution towards the subject.
Mahan has been recognised for his significant contributions in the areas of geometry, groups, dynamics, and probability. His work has uncovered deep connections between these areas and has also helped resolve central questions pertaining to these fields, particularly the series of papers he published on Cannon–Thurston maps that proved the existence of such maps for all finitely generated Kleinian groups. His work has solved one of the major problems in the Thurston programme for studying hyperbolic 3-manifolds.
Born in West Bengal in 1968, Mahan received his Master’s degree from IIT Kanpur in 1992 and completed his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997. He is also a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. Before joining TIFR, he was Professor and Dean of Research at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University.
During his long and impressive career, Mahan received the Sloan Research Fellowship and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. He was also an invited speaker at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians at Rio de Janeiro.
The winner of the KRS Sastry Prize was selected by a six-member jury of international mathematicians. The prize consists of a cash award of Rs 5 lakh and an accompanying citation.
CONTACT:
Office of Communications, IISc | news@iisc.ac.in
Department of Mathematics, IISc | chair.math@iisc.ac.in
Website: https://math.iisc.ac.in/sastry-prize/
