Soumya Swaminathan and Manindra Agrawal Elected as Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS)

Key facts

• Dr Soumya Swaminathan and Professor Manindra Agrawal have been elected as fellows of the FRS in the 2026 cohort for their landmark contributions to science.
• Dr Soumya Swaminathan, a paediatrician and former Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the second Indian woman to be elected as a fellow in the 400-year history of the academy.
• Professor Manindra Agrawal, the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, developed the AKS primality test and has received the Infosys Prize, the Gödel Prize, and the Padma Shri in 2013.
• Adaseer Cursetjee Wadia was the first Indian elected to the society in 1841, followed by Srinivasa Ramanujan in 1918 and CV Raman in 1924, who later resigned from the fellowship in 1968.
• Gagandeep Kang became the first Indian woman elected as a fellow in 2019, while Dr Swaminathan previously served as the Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).