Theoretical physicist Ashoke Sen has been awarded the Oskar Klein Medal for 2026, becoming the first Indian physicist to receive the honour, the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) announced. Sen is an ICTS-Infosys Madhava Chair Professor at ICTS, part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bengaluru.

Source: ICTS (official announcement)

The medal, named after Swedish theoretical physicist Oskar Klein, is awarded annually by Stockholm University and the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Established in 1988, it recognises distinguished contributions to physics, and its first three recipients were Nobel laureates Chen-Ning Yang, Steven Weinberg and Hans Bethe, ICTS said.

Source: ICTS (official announcement)

ICTS said the honour recognises Sen's pioneering work on S-duality, the precision counting of black-hole entropy and string field theory, contributions that have helped shape modern string theory. He delivered the 2026 Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture, titled 'Gravity from Strings and Strings from Gravity', at Stockholm University's AlbaNova Centre on October 22, PTI reported via The Hindu BusinessLine.

Source: PTI via The Hindu BusinessLine

Sen previously received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2012 and the Dirac Medal in 2014. His other honours include the Infosys Prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2009, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1994, the Padma Shri in 2001 and the Padma Bhushan in 2013, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1998, ICTS said. ICTS Director Rajesh Gopakumar congratulated Sen, saying it had been wonderful having him at the centre and that he had set the tone for excellence there.

Source: ICTS (official announcement)

Sources: International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), official announcement; PTI via The Hindu BusinessLine, October 24, 2026; and Shafaqna India, October 24, 2026, reporting the ICTS announcement.

Source: ICTS (official announcement)