Mahananda (Nanda) Dasgupta was awarded the Pawsey Medal for 2006. This award recognises outstanding research in physics by scientists less than 40 years old (except in the case of significant

interruptions to a research career). The award is made annually, and is restricted to candidates who are normally resident in Australia, and carried out their research mainly in Australia. This award was also won by a woman last year, Professor Michelle Simmons, who was this year elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Dr Nanda Dasgupta was born in Jaipur, India. Nanda’s interest in physics and mathematics was fostered by her parents, in particular her mother who encouraged her daughter to study science, because she saw the emergence of the era of science. Nanda also credits inspiring teachers for fostering her interest in physics. Nanda did her undergraduate studies in mathematics and physics at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. She went to an all-girls university college, and fondly remembers its encouraging environment which led the girls to do their best and take pride in their achievements. At this stage she decided to concentrate on studying physics, because she felt it was closer to practical applications than mathematics. She completed her Masters in Jaipur, and then moved to the prestigious Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay to do her PhD, which she completed in 1992. Nanda was subsequently offered a postdoc position in Australia, at the Department of Nuclear Physics within the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering (RSPhysSE) at the Australian National University. She gladly accepted, since the Department had already an attractive research program, with the added bonus of an exotic location. After the postdoc, she stayed on in RSPhysSE as a Research Fellow. From 1998 to 2003 she held a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship offered by the Australian Research Council. Nanda now has a continuing position in RSPhysSE, being the first female tenured scientist there, and she works in the Nuclear Reaction Dynamics group.

Nanda’s research interests are in the fundamental process of fusion of heavy nuclei, understanding what happens when nuclei collide. Her work involves quantum tunnelling, manipulating objects like ions and nuclei such that they make a transition through a classically-forbidden energy region. For example, at a quantum scale, positively charged nuclei of gold atoms can react with a beam of positively charged oxygen atoms, even when the energy is lower than that required to overcome their mutual repulsion (resulting from their positive charges). To enable these reactions, the beam particles need to be travelling at very high velocity, up to 10% of the speed of light, and this is why her research takes place at the ANU’s heavy-ion accelerator facility. In addition to carrying out complex experiments, together with her technical team, Nanda has also designed and built a novel detection system “Solitaire”. This unique made-to measure device effectively separates and identifies rare events of interest from billions of unwanted events, allowing precise measurements of the extremely short-lived nuclear collision products.

Nanda has also been recognized for her broader contributions to the discipline, being an active participant in programs such as Adopt-a-Physicist, designed to raise the profile of Physics amongst the high school students and in the general community. She was selected by the Australian Institute of Physics as the Women in Physics Lecturer for 2004.