Bengaluru [Karnataka]: Renowned Indian theoretical physicist Professor Ashoke Sen has been awarded the prestigious Oskar Klein Medal for 2026, becoming the first Indian physicist to receive the international honour. The award recognizes his pioneering contributions to string theory which seeks to explain the fundamental nature of the universe, black hole entropy and string field theory, which have significantly shaped modern theoretical physics.
An alumnus of Presidency College in Kolkata and the University of Calcutta, Professor Sen has also been conferred the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan for his contributions to science. He is currently serving as the Infosys-Madhava Chair Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru.
The Oskar Klein Medal is awarded annually by Stockholm University and the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden. Established in 1988, it honours distinguished contributions to physics and is named after Swedish theoretical physicist Oskar Klein. Previous recipients include Nobel laureates Stephen Hawking, Peter Higgs, Chen-Ning Yang, Steven Weinberg and Hans Bethe, underlining the award’s international standing.
[AIR News]