Two Yale scholars receive Blavatnik awards for top young scientists

Two Yale research scientists – computer scientist Raghavendra Pradyumna Pothukuchi and geneticist Nicole Lake — are among nine recipients of the Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists, which honor outstanding postdoctoral scientists from academic research institutions from across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Pothukuchi, an associate research scientist in the Department of Computer Science in Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, has received the 2024 Blavatnik Regional Award in the category for physical sciences and engineering. In his research, Pothukuchi has achieved unprecedented advances in creating a “brain-memex,” a system that interfaces computers with the human brain and could fundamentally shift humankind’s ability to understand neurological characteristics.

Lake, an assistant professor of genetics at Yale School of Medicine, was named a finalist in the life sciences category. In her work, she is developing novel tools to study genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to improve genetic diagnostics for patients with rare diseases.

The winners and finalists will be honored during a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Oct. 1.

The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, which was established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in 2007 and is independently administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, has recognized outstanding regional scientific talent among faculty and postdoctoral students since 2007.

“Postdocs help drive research and innovation forward and are catalysts for new scientific ideas and applied technologies,” said Nicholas B. Dirks, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Added Len Blavatnik, founder of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Access Industries, the ongoing research and discoveries of this year’s laureates and finalists “will contribute to the global scientific community for years to come.”