Biography: Ramachandran Sankarasubramanian was the first person to receive this distinguished annual award in recognition of his sincere effort to promote continuing learning in materials science and engineering education. This award will allowed Mr. Sankarasubramanian to further extend his two dimensional study of "Equilibrium Shapes of Coherent Precipitates" to three dimensions.

Mr. Sankarasubramanian earned his M.E. degree in Metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science in July 1994 with distinction - ranking number one in his class. He has submitted his doctoral thesis for the award of the Ph.D. degree in Metallurgy to the Indian Institute of Science.

He has taken an active leadership role in the TMS Student Chapter Weekly Seminar Series. He has conducted over 50 seminars and served as the conveyer for the Tenth Annual Symposium on Metallurgical & Materials Research. Other accomplishments include eight papers published in journals and conference proceedings, as well as active participation in poster sessions during the Annual Technical Meetings of the Indian Institute of Metals. He most recently published the paper "Symmetry-Breaking Transitions in Equilibrium Shapes of Coherent Precipitates" in the Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids.