Prof. Nutan Limaye Chosen as the Recipient of ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman (OCCW) 2023 Award

December 28, 2023

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) India Council has named Prof. Nutan Limaye as the recipient of ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman (OCCW) Award for 2023. A selection committee comprising eminent experts in Computer Science and Engineering chose Nutan for this edition of the OCCW award. The award recognizes women professionals who have made fundamental, innovative and impactful contributions to the field of computing and gender-diversity, while primarily working in India. The award carries a prize of ₹7 lakhs, sponsored by Google.

Limaye receives this award  “for her outstanding contributions, while in India, to computational complexity, and her active encouragement and mentoring of women in the field.” 

Limaye is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and an Associate Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department, IIT Bombay (on leave). She received her PhD from Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai. Her research interests are in theoretical computer science, more specifically, algebraic computational complexity.

Limaye has made many landmark contributions to the field of computational complexity in the 18 years that she worked in India. She has successfully proved strong lower bounds for multiple restricted models of computation, significantly improving on prior-work. Her breakthrough result, providing the first superpolynomial lower bound for constant-depth algebraic circuits, has created new enthusiasm and activity in the area. For her contributions, Limaye has won the FOCS 2021 Best Paper Award. She has published several papers at top venues, including an invited paper in a special issue of FOCS 2014.

The theoretical computer science community has repeatedly acknowledged Limaye ’s contributions. She has been regularly invited to speak at Dagstuhl workshops and Oberwolfach workshops. She has served on several PCs of top theoretical computer science conferences, and has organized several workshops and conferences. She is the only woman scientist from India invited twice as a long-term researcher to spend a semester at Simons Institute, UC Berkeley. In addition to all of this, Limaye has been invited to give popular talks on CS across India. She has served on the ACM India-W Committee, currently serves as the Regional Activities Co-Chair in ACM-W (Global), and maintains a podcast called “Life of a researcher” that showcases researchers and their diverse research journeys.

vhas been an extremely engaged mentor to several students and young researchers. While at IIT Bombay, she introduced many new courses, guided several students, and helped build a strong culture in complexity theory. She is a strong role model for women in Computer Science and has also helped formulate IIT Bombay’s gender policy.

Please join us in congratulating Prof. Nutan Limaye.

Regards,

The ACM India Awards Steering Committee