IIT-Kanpur professor Sanjay Mittal has bagged the prestigious GD Birla Award for Scientific Research for 2016. Mittal, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, has been chosen for his contribution in the area of Mechanics.

Mittal has made a significant contribution to the development of finite element algorithms for high-performance computing (HPS). His most significant contribution has been in the area of Bluff Body Flows (flows past blunt bodies associated with large unsteady separation and leading to large fluid forces). He is among a very few people in India who have worked on and used Finite Element Analysis for fluid flows. He was instrumental in establishing the HPC facility, primarily funded by DST, at IIT-Kanpur. Mittal has also been awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.

GD Birla Award for Scientific Research, instituted in 1991, seeks to recognise Indian scientists aged below 50 living and working in India for their outstanding contribution to any branch of science and technology. It carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh. The selection of the award is made by a board comprising eminent scientists.