IASTA Best M. Tech. Thesis Award

IASTA Best M. Tech. Thesis Award aims to recognize postgraduate students whose work demonstrates sound understanding, methodological rigor, practical relevance, and innovation in aerosol research, applications, or instrumentation development. Nominations are welcome from academic institutions, research organizations, and relevant departments across the country.

Award Rules:

  • Selection Process-

The selection process will be carried out by a panel of distinguished experts in the field of aerosol science and technology. If deemed necessary, shortlisted candidates may be invited to deliver a presentation or participate in an interactive discussion to further elaborate on their research contributions based on the committee’s recommendation, the final selection is made by an award jury appointed by the IASTA Executive Committee. The award for the year 2025 will be granted during the AAC-2025.

  • Eligibility Criteria-

  1. The candidate must have completed and successfully defended their M. Tech. dissertation within the specified window (1 November 2023 to 31 August 2025).
  2. The M. Tech. degree should be conferred by a duly accredited academic or research institution in India.
  3. The research must be primarily focused on aerosol science and technology, encompassing experimental, theoretical, or applied aspects of the field.

  • Nomination Dossier-

The nomination package must be submitted by nominator (M. Tech. advisor, Head of the Department, or a senior academic faculty member) as a single PDF file, containing the following documents in the specified order:

  1. M. Tech. certificate or a letter confirming successful thesis defence;
  2. A one-page nomination letter highlighting the thesis merits; clearly articulating the significance and strengths of the thesis work.
  3. A two-page summary of the thesis covering research objectives, methods, key findings, and impact of the work.
  4. The nominee’s updated Curriculum Vitae (maximum two pages), listing academic achievements, peer-reviewed publications, and any awards or recognitions received.
  5. At least one independent recommendation letter (excluding the supervisor);
  6. A soft copy (PDF) of M. Tech. thesis; and
  7. Copies of published papers (Journal articles or conference paper) from the thesis should be attached, with details on impact factors, citation counts, or other relevant indicators.
All applications should be submitted to s.gunthe@iitm.ac.in (Dr. Sachin Gunthe, Chair, IASTA Best M.Tech. thesis award), cc’ing to iastaindia@gmail.com. Late date for receiving applications is October 31, 2025.

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Kalpana Balakrishnan

SRIHER, India

Title of the talk:
Air Pollution, Health and Air Quality Actions: Do we need more evidence or more risk communication?

Biodata: Professor Kalpana Balakrishnan is a senior global environmental health researcher with nearly 30 years of experience in leading large-scale field epidemiological studies in India. Her primary research involvement has been in the area of health effects of household and ambient air pollution and chemical risk assessment. She has designed and conducted multiple cohort studies and has also been involved with multi-country randomized control trials, to strengthen the evidence for efficacy of air pollution interventions on birth/early childhood and adult cardio-vascular outcomes. She is globally acclaimed for her contributions on developing novel exposure assessment approaches to characterize the complex multi-media exposures experienced by rural and urban populations in low- and middle-income countries She is currently engaged in research and training collaborations with a network of more than 50 national and international institutional partners to address national and global health research priorities. She is a distinguished fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences in India.

Dr. Balakrishnan’s CV and profile can be downloaded here (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5905-1801)

Prof. Nikolaos Mihalopoulos

Greece

Title of the talk: Health impact of aerosols: A multiparametric approach over Greece

Prof. Nikolaos Mihalopoulos graduated from Chemistry department (University of Athens, 1984) and obtained a PhD (1989) from University Paris VII (France) in Atmospheric Sciences. In 1993 he was elected as Assistant Professor at the University of Crete and in 2003 as Full Professor. Between 2013-2023 he acted as Director of the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development (IERSD) of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA). Today is Research Director at IERSD/NOA.

His expertise is in the field of Atmospheric chemistry and physics and Global biogeochemical cycles. He is also visiting Professor at Cyprus Institute since 2011. He has participated in more than 60 research programs (in 45 as coordinator) and acted as a member of the Organizing and Scientific Committee in 15 National and International Conferences. He has published more than 450 original papers (more than 33000 citations, h-index = 103). He has supervised 20 PhD theses, 50 Master Theses and over 100 Diploma works.

He is President of IARA (International AeRosol Association) and of HAAR, (Hellenic Association of Aerosol Research) and National representative at JRC (Joint Research Center). He acted as member of the National Council for adaptation to the climatic change (2018-2019), as member and President of the Environment Committee of NATO (2004-2007) and member of the selection committee for advanced ERC grants (2019-2022).

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