Manu Prakash, an Indian American bioengineer at Stanford and his French collaborator Marcel Babin, have received a special $25,000 research award for their research on microbial life trapped in sea ice, enhancing our understanding of modern polar ecosystems.
By combining polar science, micro-scale physics, and bioengineering, they aim to uncover the physical and physiological mechanisms that allow life to persist inside icy worlds.
This knowledge is essential for understanding present-day polar ecosystems, past glaciations on Earth, and the potential for life on other planets.
Babin’s team brings expertise in polar ecology and and microalgal physiology, conducting laboratory experiments that reproduce different forms of sea ice.
Read: Four Indian American students win 2026 Harvard Hoopes Prize (May 6, 2026)He did his BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology before earning his MS and PhD in Applied Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Manu Prakash, an Indian American bioengineer at Stanford and his French collaborator Marcel Babin, have received a special $25,000 research award for their research on microbial life trapped in sea ice, enhancing our understanding of modern polar ecosystems.
Prakash, an associate professor of bioengineering in the Schools of Engineering and Medicine at Stanford, and Babin, his collaborator at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), joined forces to explore the mysteries of life in extreme environments, specifically how microorganisms colonize and thrive within growing sea ice.
By combining polar science, micro-scale physics, and bioengineering, they aim to uncover the physical and physiological mechanisms that allow life to persist inside icy worlds. This knowledge is essential for understanding present-day polar ecosystems, past glaciations on Earth, and the potential for life on other planets.
Babin’s team brings expertise in polar ecology and and microalgal physiology, conducting laboratory experiments that reproduce different forms of sea ice.
Read: Indian American researcher wins University of Maryland honor (May 14, 2026)
Prakash contributes groundbreaking mathematical and experimental approaches, such as low-temperature ice microfluidics, new low-temperature microscopes, and bioengineering that probe these molecular processes at unprecedented subcellular resolution.
Together, their complementary approaches create an entirely new framework linking microscopic cellular behavior to large-scale ice ecological dynamics in an ecosystem that is under threat.
The “Trapped in Ice” project is supported by the Human Frontier Science Program and also involves key collaborators, including Éric Maréchal from CNRS and François Fripiat from Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Prakash is also an associate professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Oceans in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and a Global Health Faculty Fellow and a member of the core advisory team at the Center for Innovation in Global Health.
Read: Four Indian American students win 2026 Harvard Hoopes Prize (May 6, 2026)
He did his BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology before earning his MS and PhD in Applied Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prakash and Babin were recognized to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence and the longstanding scientific ties between France and the United States at a symposium on May 20 and 21 at the André and Liliane Bettencourt Auditorium of the Institut de France.
As part of a symposium “From the Enlightenment to AI: 250 Years of Shared Scientific Revolutions Between France and the United States,” hosted by the National Academies of Sciences of France and the United States, the Richard Lounsbery Foundation created a $25,000 research award to recognize and encourage the continuation of the work of four pairs of researchers working in France and the United States.
