Global pride for Kerala: Kannur scientist wins prestigious ₹3 cr Marie Curie Fellowship

IN a historic achievement for the Malayali scientific community, Dr Bipin Balaram has secured the renowned Marie Curie Research Fellowship awarded by the European Union.

The grant, amounting to ₹3 crore (3,00,000 Euros), will fund groundbreaking research into solving the energy crisis in ocean exploration, a field currently considered one of the greatest challenges in marine science.

Dr Bipin Balaram, a native of Kannur and associate professor of mechanical engineering at Amrita University, Coimbatore, was selected for this honour to develop perpetual energy solutions for deep-sea monitoring.

Oceanographic studies, ranging from tsunami warnings and climate change tracking to environmental preservation, rely on millions of sensors across the seabed. Currently, replacing batteries in these sensors is a massive financial and logistical burden.

His research aims to resolve this "power crisis" by directly converting the natural motion of ocean waves into electricity using pendulum-based technology. This innovation would allow sensor buoys to function uninterrupted for years, significantly improving global tsunami alert systems and marine ecosystem monitoring.

An alumnus of Government Engineering College, Thrissur, where he served as College Union Chairman, Dr Bipin earned his PhD from NIT Calicut. He is currently a research faculty member at the Lodz University of Technology in Poland. As part of this fellowship, he will now conduct two years of independent research at the University of Glasgow in the UK.

Dr Bipin is the eldest son of retired Professor M P Balaram and K Sasikala of Kannur. He is married to Dr M M Radhika.