Mangalorean and NITK Alumnus Harsha Bhat Recipient of French Scientist Award
Mangaluru: The French Academy of Sciences has chosen Harsha S. Bhat, a CNRS (The French National Centre for Scientific Research) researcher at the Ecole Normale Superieure Laboratory of Geology, for the prestigious Michel Gouilloud Schlumberger prize for 2018.
He is the son of Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, president of Dakshina Kannada unit of Komu Souharda Vedike and an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka (NIT-K), Surathkal where he studied civil engineering. Harsha Bhat would receive the award on November 20.
The prize is awarded to researchers under 45 years of age for a significant discovery made before the age of 35 years in the field of sciences of the universe (geology or geophysics). He is rewarded for his original work on the mechanics of earthquakes. The award carries a purse of € 20,000 {Euros} and a medal. Bhat is a solid mechanician and seismologist by training. After completing his PhD at Harvard University, he completed postdoctoral studies at Caltech and the University of Southern California. He joined the CNRS in 2012 as Senior Research Scientist.
Harsha Bhat works at the interface between tectonics, seismology, solid mechanics and computational mechanics. His most recent discovery is that some types of earthquake faults may also tend to open up, contrary to the traditional understanding that faults only slide past one another. His father expressing his happiness on his son’s achievement said “I’m proud of him and his contribution to science and humankind.”,