IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026: Maruthi R Akella Honoured for Role in US Moon Landing Mission

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has announced the IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026. Aerospace scientist Maruthi R. Akella is among five alumni chosen for the honour. His work on guidance algorithms helped a private US spacecraft reach the Moon, and an asteroid now carries his name. Check the IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 full winner list below

IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 Key Facts

Here are some of the important details about the IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026

IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 Full Winner List

Here is the IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 winner list

IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 Recognise Five Scientists

The five awardees come from fields as varied as space, computing, physics and defence.

1. B S Manjunath is a computer scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He works on computer vision and image data analysis, and helped build BisQue, an open-source platform used by the US National Science Foundation’s CyVerse. He also contributed to the MPEG-7 video standard.
2. Dipankar Das Sarma is an ANRF National Science Chair who studies condensed matter physics. He helped set up the Indo-Italian beamlines at Elettra, which give Indian researchers access to global synchrotron facilities.
3. Jagannath Nayak is Director General, Missiles and Strategic Systems, at DRDO. He led the development of indigenous Fibre Optic Gyroscopes for the Akash, Nag and Astra programmes, and contributed to India’s Laser Directed Energy Weapon system.
4. Rajat Moona is Director of IIT Gandhinagar. His work supports India’s digital infrastructure, including driving licences, e-passports, EVMs, VVPAT and FASTag. He also helped India’s supercomputing push as Director General of C-DAC.
5. Maruthi R Akella is the aerospace expert covered in the next section.

Maruthi R Akella’s Contribution: Why Is He in the News?

Akella completed his ME in Aerospace Engineering at IISc in 1994. He is now the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His algorithms supported onboard guidance for the IM-1 lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines. In recognition of this, minor planet 5376 has been named “Maruthiakella”.

His research covers spacecraft attitude estimation, adaptive control, vision-guided robotics and orbital mechanics. He is also the founding director of the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility at UT Austin, Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, and a VAIBHAV Fellow hosted by IISc.

IISc Young Alumni Medals 2026 Awarded to 3 Researchers

IISc will also honour three researchers under 40 with Young Alumni Medals.

1. Abhishek Sinha, Reader at TIFR Mumbai, works on online learning and network optimisation.
2. Geethu Joseph, Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, works on sparse control, intelligent sensing and autonomous systems.
3. Himanshu Joshi, Assistant Professor at IIT Hyderabad, works on computational biophysics, molecular simulations and DNA nanotechnology, including artificial water channels.

IISc Distinguished Alumni Awards 2026 Ceremony Will Take Place on 19 December 2026

The awards will be presented on 19 December 2026 at the JN Tata Auditorium on the IISc campus. IISc Director Prof G Rangarajan said the awards recognise alumni achievements and their contribution to society and the Institute. A committee reviews nominations under the Director’s oversight.