Katepalli Sreenivasan, celebrated scientist and Tandon’s Dean Emeritus, explores the connection between science and spirituality

The Trotter Prize in Information, Complexity and Inference is bestowed upon the rare scientist who has made pioneering contributions to the understanding of the role of information, complexity, and inference in illuminating the mechanisms and wonder of nature. 

Recipients of the prize, which is endowed in honor of Ide P. Trotter Sr., former Dean of the Texas A&M Graduate School, are invited to give a lecture at Texas A&M that reveals connections between science and religion–often viewed in academia, as the prize organizers explain, as non-overlapping, if not rival, worldviews.

Dean Emeritus Katepalli Sreenivasan, who also serves as Tandon’s Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering, recently added the Trotter Prize to his long list of honors and says preparing the lecture was both challenging and gratifying. 

“Most lectures I have given are about physical sciences,” he explains. “It is astoundingly easy to give a decent lecture on such subjects because the underlying tenets transcend all cultural divides and there is a common understanding; you just need to have thought through your subject well. When I have occasionally spoken about the general values of life, it has not been so difficult because I have usually stayed within the range of my experience. While attempting to bridge what is clearly my heritage over millennia on the subject of consciousness with modern-day research on that subject, and to provide some meaning to it across time and space, I found my abilities stretched continually. But it was worth the effort because I deeply care about the subject, and will be attempting to expand on it further if the right opportunity arises.”

Read Sreenivasan’s lecture.

Read about his latest research.