Four Indian Americans — Anjan Chakravartty, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame; Amitava Kumar, the Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College, New York; Rajesh Rao, Director of the Center for ‘Sensorimotor Neural Engineering’ and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Neil Garg, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA — are among a group of 178, artists, scholars, and scientists from all fields, who have been named John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellows in the prestigious program which started in 1925.
The candidates were chosen from a group of roughly 3,000 applicants based on prior achievement and exceptional promise, according to a foundation news release, and include three joint Fellowships.
“It’s exciting to name 178 new Guggenheim Fellows. These artists and writers, scholars and scientists, represent the best of the best,” foundation president Edward Hirsh said in a statement.
Chakravartty was named a Fellow in the discipline of philosophy. He is a professor and director at the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame.
Garg was chosen as a Fellow in the chemistry discipline. Garg earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from New York University and his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology.
Kumar was named a Fellow in the general nonfiction discipline. He is the Helen D. Lockwood professor of English at Vassar College.
Rao received the Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in neuroscience. He is the director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.