International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)

• The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has awarded its 2026 Dirac Medal to four physicists who have made important contributions to statistical mechanics.

• Indian physicist Deepak Dhar is among the award winners.

• Dhar received his PhD at the California Institute of Technology. For decades he worked at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai before joining the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in 2016. He has been an Indian National Science Academy (INSA) distinguished professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research since 2024. 

The other three awardees are:

i) Bernard Derrida from France.

ii) Marc Mezard from Italy.

iii) Haim Sompolinsky from Israel.

• The award recognises the four scientists for their pioneering contributions to equilibrium statistical mechanics and for extending its concepts and methods into non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, optimisation problems, theoretical neuroscience, and, finally, artificial intelligence.

ICTP Dirac Medal

• The Dirac Medal is awarded annually by the ICTP in honour of physicist Paul Dirac.

• Established in 1985, the ICTP Dirac Medal recognises important contributions to the field of theoretical physics. 

• Medallists include leading figures in the discipline, many of whom went on to receive even more important awards, such as the Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal. 

What is ICTP?

• ICTP was founded in 1964 in Trieste, Italy, by Pakistani Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, out of his conviction that science is the common heritage of humankind. 

• By securing strategic support from the Italian government, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 

Salam laid the foundations for what was to become ICTP’s extraordinary environment for advancing knowledge in the physical and mathematical sciences.

• ICTP is part of the Trieste System, a network of national and international scientific institutes in Trieste, promoted by the Italian physicist Paolo Budinich.

• ICTP’s permanent faculty of distinguished scientists conducts rigorous world-class,  curiosity-driven research in frontier and interdisciplinary science ranging from string theory and cosmology to quantum computing, climate science, and quantitative life sciences. 

• They teach and mentor hundreds of students and young researchers every year, equipping them to go on to study, teach, and conduct research in the world’s finest universities, and to contribute to the development of science in their home countries.