Gandhinagar: Prof Amit Prashant, Professor of Civil Engineering and Officiating Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), has won the prestigious Gopal Ranjan Technology Award 2021.

The Gopal Ranjan Technology Award is presented by IIT Roorkee every year to an Indian national or an alumni of IIT Roorkee for creative work in the fields of Soil Characteristics/ Foundation Engineering/ Ground Improvement / Soil Structure Interaction/ Engineering Geology/ Underground Structures/ Rock Mechanics/ Subsurface including marine structure in India.

Prof Amit Prashant has received the award for his significant research contributions in the field of civil engineering, ranging from fundamental soil mechanics to applied work on various geotechnical structures. The award will be presented to him in coming months during a formal award ceremony to be organised by IIT Roorkee.

Sharing his thoughts, Prof Amit Prashant said, “It is an honour to be selected for this award from my alma mater. I am humbled and grateful to the award committee for recognising my work with this award. I also take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, mentors, students, collaborators, and family because all the work that I have done till now would not have been possible without their consistent support and encouragement. I look forward to contributing in more ways in the infrastructure and educational development of the country.”

Professor Prashant holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee) and a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, USA. His research focuses on constitutive modelling for granular materials, numerical modelling of geotechnical structures, earthquake geotechnical engineering, and applications of geosynthetics. Professor Prashant has worked with various industry and government bodies on some of the most challenging infrastructure and consultancy projects. He has also contributed in developing codes/guidelines about earthquake engineering and geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls.

Besides, he has been contributing significantly to academic administration, engineering education, organising major conferences, Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) of the Ministry of Education, professional bodies, industry-academia interaction, and so on.  He has also taken lead in organising 14 industry-short-courses related to earthquake engineering, Geotechnical Investigations, and Geosynthetics.