SSSIHL Achievements Tag

When science meets art, the outcome could want to make you say OMG!

A few years ago, when Dr. Balaram Khamari brought his love for art into the BioScience lab at SSSIHL, he discovered a new form of expression through a recently popular unusual art form called ‘Agar art‘.

Fascinated with his unusual yet amazing talent, the History TV18 channel has now featured Dr. Balaram and his work on their popular show OMG! Yeh Mera India, which showcases stories of Indians with extraordinary and unique talents. Balaram was featured in episode 7, season 8 of the show that was aired on 7 March 2022.

A student of BioScience from Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Balaram completed his B.Sc. (Hons) in 2014 and his M.Sc. with a Gold medal in 2016. He later went on to complete his Ph.D. in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. B.E. Pradeep, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences, Prasanthi Nilayam campus and is currently the Project Coordinator in a BIRAC funded project, AMR Laboratory, Department of Biosciences at the Prasanthi Nilayam campus of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning.

In 2020, Dr. Balaram received 2nd place in the annual Agar art contest organised by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for his work ‘Microbial Peacock’.

What is Agar art?

Agar is a jelly-like substance made from seaweed. When used as a medium to grow or culture micro-organisms (bacteria, yeast, fungi, or protists) into specific patterns/forms, it is called Agar art and those practicing are known as Agar artists.

Chosen for their colors, the microbes arranged on the Agar plate (canvas) lend their color to the intricate pattern/design as they grow, creating stunning visuals/pictures

View video: https://youtu.be/TwDmi57zCG0

We congratulate Dr.Balaram Khamari for his achievements and for making us proud and wish him many more in the future.

Sri R. Mahesh Varma, Asst. Lecturer, Sri Sathya Sai Mirpuri College of Music, SSSIHL, was conferred the M. S. Subbulakshmi Sangeet Samman 2021 by ReTHINK INDIA Harnarain Kantidevi Musical Research Center at an online ceremony commemorating the 17th Punya Tithi of Bharat Ratna M. S. Subbulakshmi on 11 December 2021.

ReTHINK INDIA Harnarain Kantidevi Musical Research Center invited nominations for the M. S. Subbulakshmi Sangeet Samman 2021 from music faculty across educational institutions in India. Mahesh submitted his vocal rendition (accompanied on Veena by himself) of the popular Carnatic composition “Kurai Onrum Illai” along with a short speech on the topic “Music Education Imparted to Boost Musical Intelligence” for the nomination screening as required and was one of the 20 awardees felicitated by ReTHINK INDIA, for the contours of musical education professed by him as a faculty of Sri Sathya Sai Mirpuri College of Music.

SSSIHL congratulates Sri Mahesh Varma for this achievement and wishes him many more laurels in the future.

Link to the audio submissions:

http://www.sssihl.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Mahesh-Varma_SPEECH.mp3
http://www.sssihl.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Mahesh-Varma_KURAI-ONDRUM-ILLAI.mp3

View Felicitation Video:

https://youtu.be/Kx6XCjsmiqk

Ms. Avanthika K, an alumna of the SSSIHL DFNS, Anantapur, received the ‘Certificate of Best Performer’ for her paper titled “Development and Shelf-life Studies of Quinoa Flour Enriched Gluten-free Cookies” presented at the ‘Innovation in Food Processing and Nutritional Sciences’ virtual conference organised by the Department of Food Processing Technology, AMET University, Chennai, on 29 June 2021. The paper was co- authored by Dr. Meera Manikkavachakan, research supervisor & Assistant Professor, DFNS.

Ms. Avanthika completed her M.Sc. in Food and Nutritional Sciences in 2018, and is currently working as a Dietician in the Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital, Puttaparthi. The work presented was part of her M.Sc. project and was carried out under the supervision of Dr. Meera M.

Organised by the Department of Food Processing Technology, Academy of Maritime Education and Training (AMET), this virtual conference on ‘Innovation in Food Processing and Nutritional Sciences’ was a two-day conference that focused mainly on the Innovations in Food Processing and Technology with an aim to bring together innovative leaders and also research scholars to share and discuss the rapid scientific and technological advances that are transforming the way food is being produced, processed and consumed while exploring new possibilities.

SSSIHL congratulates Ms. Avanthika K for the recognition and making the University proud, and wishes her the very best for her future.

Sri Seemesh Bhaskar, DST-Inspire SRF, SSSIHL, was awarded the Prestigious Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society Research Award 2021 at a ceremony held online. Seemesh, won the Bhoutikam Runners-up award in the Physics category, for his innovative research explorations performed at STAR Lab, CRIF, Dept. of Chemistry, SSSIHL on the topic “Hybrid Soret Nano-assembly for Ultrasensitive Surface Plasmon-Coupled Emission and Photonic Crystal-Coupled Emission Interfaces”. The award includes a prize Rs. 10,000/- and a trophy to the runner up in each category.

Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society Research award was formed in 2001 and is held annually to promote scientific research, popularize science and encourage young scientists to continue their career in basic sciences. Young researchers from all over the country below the age of 30, working in the field of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biosciences are selected for the award, based on the scrutiny and recommendations of the panel of judges (eminent scientists) after careful evaluation of research work and the presentations by the candidates in each category of allied sciences. The research work to be presented for the award should also be part of the doctoral program carried out or being carried out by the candidate.
 

This year the prestigious award ceremony was held in the august presence of the President, KVRSS, Mr. Anil Kumar Kutty, I.A.S and Prof. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, Chancellor of Central University of Rajasthan and NIIT University, an eminent Scientist and Ex-Chairman of ISRO for 9 long years and recipient of three highest civilian honors, The Padma Shri (1982), The Padma Bhushan (1992) and The Padma Vibhushan (2000).

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Sri Seemesh Bhaskar for the above prestigious recognition and for making the University proud.

Link for the Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society program: https://www.kvrss.org/research-awards.html

YouTube link of the award being presented to Sri Seemesh Bhaskar: https://youtu.be/BdJUbbqHRw0?t=7533

The Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences (DFNS), SSSIHL won prizes for oral presentations at the National E-Conference on ‘Integration of Modern and Traditional Nutrition Approaches Towards Health and Wellbeing: Importance, Challenges and Future’ organized by Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar, on 28th and 29th April 2021.

Ms. Sai Sruthi Shree K K, Doctoral Research Scholar, DFNS won the First Prize for her presentation under the ‘Traditional Nutrition’ category for the paper entitled ‘Ayurvedic Perspective and Modern Nutritional Evaluation of Traditional Indian Brown Rice Varieties’ co-authored by Ms. Ashrita C. Haldipur, Doctoral Research Scholar, DFNS, and Dr. N. Srividya, research supervisor & Head, DFNS. This paper helped to validate the traditional knowledge on the nutritional importance of select pigmented rice varieties using modern research techniques. The award included a certificate of appreciation and a cash prize of rupees five thousand.

Under the ‘Trends in Therapeutic Nutrition’ category, Prof. B. Andallu, Honorary Faculty, DFNS, won the second prize for her paper entitled ‘Amelioration of H2O2-induced oxidative stress in human leukocytes by aniseed (Pimpinella anisum L.) extracts’ co-authored by Dr. Shobha Iyer. The paper explained the potency of aniseeds that are rich in bioactive phytochemicals as a preventive agent against oxidative stress-induced diseases. The award included a certificate of appreciation and a cash prize of rupees three thousand.

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Ms. Sai Sruthi and Prof. B Andallu and team DFNS, for the above recognition and for making the University proud.

Dr. V. Prathyusha, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, SSSIHL, Anantapur was recently awarded the ‘Young Scientist Award 2020’ by the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences (APAS) for her contribution in the field of Chemical Sciences. In addition, Dr. Prathyusha has also been admitted as ‘Associate Fellow’ of the A.P. Akademi of Sciences for the year 2020.

The Young Scientist Awards, was instituted by the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences, in recognition of the notable research contributions and outstanding work of the young scientists of Andhra Pradesh working in different fields of Science and technology which includes Physical and Mathematical/Engineering Sciences/ Earth, Ocean, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences/ Medical, Health and Sciences/Chemical Sciences/Life Sciences including Agricultural Sciences.

The computational chemistry research team headed by Dr. V. Prathyusha, comprises two research scholars, Mr. Abhishek. H and K.V. S Mani Chandrika and have been actively working on bio-inspired molecules as potential adsorbents, potent bio-active molecules and the SERS of neurotransmitters in the presence of silver clusters. These studies will find useful applications in the field of medicine and environment. The computational studies are also being complemented by synthesis of the bio-active compounds, fabrication of materials and substrates in-house, and experimental SERS studies.

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Dr. V. Prathyusha and the team for the above recognition and for making the University proud.

For more on Dr. V.Prathyusha visit https://www.sssihl.edu.in/faculty/v-prathyusha/
 

Mr. Rohan Yashraj Gupta and Mr. S R Pranav Sai, Doctoral Research Scholars in Actuarial Science, DMACS, SSSIHL had the honour to present their individual research works at the 3rd Insurance Data Science Conference at City, University of London on 17th and 18th of June 2021.

The Insurance Data Science Conference 2021 brought together academics and practitioners in areas including data science, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computational statistics, and software, as applied in the insurance industry. The exchange mainly focused on applications in insurance pricing, reserving, risk assessment and modelling, customer analytics, capital management, catastrophe, and econometric modelling.

Several leading Actuaries and Data Scientists in the Insurance industry submit their works every year. After a rigorous selection process select high-quality works would be selected for the presentation at the conference. SSSIHL Doctoral Research Scholars presented on the following topics:

A comparative study of using various Machine Learning and Deep Learning-based fraud detection models for Universal Health Coverage schemes and assessing the impact of COVID-19 in healthcare fraud (Rohan Yashraj Gupta)

Capturing the power of ensemble learning using GLM and Artificial Neural Network for insurance pricing (S R Pranav Sai)

SSSIHL congratulates Mr. Rohan Yashraj Gupta and Mr. S R Pranav Sai for the honour and appreciates their deep commitment to research in Actuarial Data Science, inspiring others into this new stream of research.

Congratulations to Mr. Sankar Krishna for receiving the 2021 CAS Trust Scholarship award!

Mr. Sankar Krishna has two actuarial papers to his credit from IFoA, UK. He wrote his third year BSc (Hons) Mathematics exams and will be pursuing MSc Maths (Actuarial stream) with focus on Property & Casualty risks. He spent the summer of 2020 interning at Tech Actuarial, focusing on claims analytics and pricing tool for group insurance products. He participated in the CAS Independent Summer Program and Actuarial Data Science workshop at the University. He is a theatre and cricket enthusiast, and plays the Trombone in the University Brass Band.

We wish him good luck in continuing actuarial education at SSSIHL.

ABOUT CAS

The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) is a leading international organization for credentialing and professional education. Founded in 1914, the CAS is the world’s only actuarial organization focused exclusively on property and casualty risks and serves over 9,100 members worldwide. CAS members are experts in property and casualty insurance, reinsurance, finance, risk management, and enterprise risk management. Professionals educated by the CAS empower business and government to make well-informed strategic, financial and operational decisions.

CAS TRUST SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The objective of the scholarship is to further students’ interest in the property/casualty actuarial profession and to encourage the pursuit of the CAS designations.
Scholarships are awarded on the basis of individual merit. The CAS Trust Scholarship Program will award up to eight scholarships to deserving students for the 2021-2022 academic year. Scholarships will range from $2,500 (4 Awards) to $5,000 (4 Awards).

Letter from CAS Trust Scholarship Committee

Puttaparthi, 9 April 2021: Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (Deemed-to-be University), Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, today entered into a research collaboration agreement with Uppsala University, Sweden, in the area of ‘Bio-Materials Research.’

The agreement was signed by Prof. B. Sai Giridhar, the Registrar, on behalf of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) and Prof. Åsa Kassman, Chairperson, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Uppsala University. H.E. Shri Tanmaya Lal, the Indian Ambassador to Sweden, presided over the event, along with Prof. (Dr.) C. B Sanjeevi, the Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Puttaparthi.

The collaboration will see both Uppsala University and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning leverage each other’s skills and research capabilities in the areas of bio-materials, leading to the development of dental and bone implants with the objective of harnessing its translational potential. This research will be led by Dr. (Ms.) Deepa Seetharaman, Principal Investigator (PI) for the SSSIHL, India, and Dr. Håkan Engqvist, (PI) for Uppsala University, Sweden.

This research collaboration is an important and prestigious landmark for the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. Hence, we dedicate this partnership to Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the Revered Founder Chancellor, SSSIHL, on whose guiding principles the institute was conceived as a Modern Gurukula.