IAPT Shilpa Nandkumar Memorial Award

Shilpa Nandakumar was born on 15 October 1987 to N. Kala and R. Nandakumar. Her academic brilliance was evident from an early age and she was very loving and caring, always willing to share her intellect and economic wealth for the betterment of humanity. Her empathy and kind heartedness endeared her to all who came to know her. As Shilpa passed through adolescence and grew up to be a young woman, she developed (a) very clear thoughts about life issues, (b) a strong sense of propriety, and (c) a vision of what she wanted to achieve professionally and a well laid plan to achieve the same. After completing her Engineering Degree from Bangalore, Shilpa went to complete her Masters in Computational Finance from the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh.She was a go-getter, always willing to stretch the extra mile to take-up challenges and make sacrifices for attaining her goal. Sadly, she was struck by some unknown and mysterious illness, which could neither be diagnosed nor treated leaving the medical fraternity guessing and all her loved ones in despair. Like a meteor, Shilpa came, enthralled and disappeared too soon at the age of 25 on 13th September 2012.

Shilpa had wished that science be used to help humanity and to motivate young minds towards that end. To celebrate Shilpa’s life and meet one of her wishes, N. Kala and R. Nandakumar have instituted IAPT-SHILPA NANDAKUMAR MEMORIAL AWARD. We are sure that this will sow the seeds for many flowers to blossom without end and take scientific enquiry to the highest level in this country. (Click docx to download the file related to this award).