AT THE CUTTING EDGE OF SCIENCE.

THE MacArthur Fellowship is possibly the most prestigious -- and the most lucrative -- award a person living in the United States can hope to get. Indian Americans have got it in the past, but two in the same year? Well, that's a first.

And that's exactly what happened in the week gone by. Two American scientists of Indian origin have been awarded the $ 500,000 ( Rs 2.5 crore) MacArthur Fellowship, also called the MacArthur Genius Award, in recognition of their ground- breaking work on computer vision technology and applied mathematics.

Computer scientist Maneesh Agrawala and applied mathematician L. Mahadevan are among 24 top professionals from fields ranging from poetry to investigative reporting and from health services innovation to paper- making who have been awarded what is regarded as the American Nobel.

Awarded every year by the Chicago- based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, it has already awarded $ 4 billion in fellowship grants so far since its inception in 1978.

Mahadevan, an IIT Madras alumnus and professor of applied mathematics at Harvard University, works on the complex mathematics behind the simplest of physical or biological phenomena such as how wrinkles develop on our skin, how flags flutter or how cloth folds when draped.

Says the 44- year- old mathematician: " I try to explain how nature works, how physical systems and biological systems on the scale of the everyday observable world work." Despite the seemingly complex mathematical world in which he lives and does research in, Mahadevan says it all begins with just an observation.

" The observation could be an experiment in a laboratory or something outside in the yard," he says. " For example if you look at a tree and its branches, you notice that the thickness of the branch varies from the location where it starts to where it ends. The tree is only trying to maximise sunlight for its leaves." Mahadevan, in this case, would work on a mathematical formula to find out the optimal way to design the branch so that it has the farthest reach. " That's a little example of how you go and make an observation, make a hypothesis and then convert that into a mathematical formulation of the problem: What is the best shape you can get for the branch."

MAHADEVAN says it is curiosity that motivates him.

" What propels me is what motivates all scientists," he says. " I tend to look at things which sometimes people take for granted C* even I take for granted. But having children around is good fun because they ask questions we often can't answer. That is one place for inspiration." His MacArthur Fellowship colleague, 37- year- old Maneesh Agrawala, is an associate professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

His work concentrates on converting a large amount of complex information into visual interfaces for easy understanding by the human mind.

According to the MacArthur Foundation citation, Agrawala developed a system that generates accurate and intelligible step- by- step assembly instructions for everyday items as well as complex machines such as aircraft engines. The system utilises exploded views -- so that individual components of the object are spatially separated -- to provide the user with a more direct understanding of the steps required for assembly." It adds: " Agrawala's novel approach to visualisation and computer communication in these and many other projects is transforming how we use, synthesise, and comprehend the ever- increasing volume of digital information we encounter in our daily lives." Says Agrawala, who quit Microsoft Research in 2006 to become an academic, " I am interested in understanding how visual displays of all kinds -- images, animation, film -- convey ideas and information to other people. We build automated or semi- automated algorithms to take some of that understanding and automate the process of creating these displays." F OR example, one of his automated animation programmes allows people to tell stories to children using just paper cutouts that are moved around on a flat surface such as a dinner table. A camera records this movement, and feeds the information to the software which then automatically removes the human hand from the recording and adds backgrounds to create an animation on the fly." Both Mahadevan and Agrawala say the Fellowship grant will help them to do stuff they have not been able to do so far, but are really interested in. " It'll allow me to do things I was scared of doing before," says Mahadevan.

Indian- origin Americans are not new to the MacArthur Fellowship.

Journalist and author Ved Mehta was awarded the Fellowship in 1982, the second year of its inception. Indian litterateur A. K. Ramanujam ( 1983), sarod player Ali Akbar Khan ( 1991), and medical scientist Vamsi Mootha ( 2004) were also awarded the MacArthur Fellowship.

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