Guggenheim fellowships for 5 Indian Americans

Five Indian Americans are among 189 artists, scholars and scientists chosen for this year's Guggenheim fellowships for distinguished achievements in their fields.

The Guggenheim Foundation, a New York-based organisation devoted to furthering the development of scholars and artistes, has awarded a total of $7,600,000 to the winners.

These fellows, selected on the basis of distinguished achievement and exceptional promise, are Salil Vadhan, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Harvard University for his research in 'The complexity of zero-knowledge proofs.'

The other winners are Suketu Mehta, for his non- fiction book on New York; Rudresh K Mahanthappa, composer and adjunct private lesson instructor in Rye Country Day School for his music composition; Sanjeev Khanna, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, for cuts, flows and network routing; and Arjun M Heimsath, assistant professor in the department of earth sciences at Dartmouth College for his study on soil erosion and sustainability.

The awards are based on recommendations from hundreds of expert advisors and are approved by the foundation's board of trustees, which includes six members who are themselves past fellows of the foundation -- Joel Conarroe, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard A. Rifkind, Charles Ryskamp, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Edward Hirsch.

Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

What distinguishes the Guggenheim Fellowship program from all others is the wide range in interest, age, geography, and institution of those it selects as it considers applications in 78 different fields, from the natural sciences to the creative arts.

The new fellows include writers, play wrights, painters, sculptors, photographers, film makers, choreographers, physical and biological scientists, social scientists, and scholars in the humanities.

Many of these individuals hold appointments in colleges and universities with 77 institutions being represented by one or more Fellows. It is worth noting that 51 of the new fellows have no affiliation with academic institutions or hold only adjunct positions in them.