Two Indian-Americans receive prestigious German research award

Both awards will be formally presented on December 2 in Berlin.

Surabhi Ranganathan, Prerna Singh / Photo courtesy- MPG/ David Ausserhofer

Two Indian-American scholars, Surabhi Ranganathan and Prerna Singh, were recognized by the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their contributions to international law and political science.

Ranganathan, professor of international law at the University of Cambridge, received the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award 2025, endowed with €1.5 million. Her research focuses on international and environmental law, particularly the legal regulation of ocean governance. Ranganathan has examined how the race for resources such as manganese nodules in the Pacific’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone exposes the interplay of geopolitics, law, and the legacies of colonization.

Also read: Uma Fox wins Princeton Undergraduate Award

She plans to use the award to launch a project titled “Ways of Worldmaking: The Global South and the (Re)Imagination of Global Ocean Governance” in collaboration with HU Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. The initiative aims to rethink the law of the sea through a decolonial lens, emphasizing global equity in resource governance.

Singh, professor of political science and international studies at Brown University, was awarded a Max Planck-Humboldt Medal, carrying €80,000 in prize money. She is widely recognized for her book “How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India” (2015), which examined the role of solidarity in shaping welfare systems in the Global South.

Her latest project addresses vaccination skepticism as a case of state-society interaction. She will pursue this work alongside researchers at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Robert Koch Institute. The award funds will directly support this interdisciplinary study, bridging political science, sociology, and public health.

The Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation jointly present the Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award and Medals. Funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), the prizes support international scholars pursuing innovative, cross-disciplinary projects at German universities and research institutes.

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