ICTS is proud to announce that Deepak Dhar has been awarded the prestigious 2026 Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), recognising his seminal contributions to statistical mechanics and complex systems.
Prof. Dhar, who is an INSA Distinguished Professor at ICTS, shares the honour with three other stalwarts of statistical mechanics, Bernard Derrida, Marc Mézard and Haim Sompolinsky. 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, optimization problems, theoretical neuroscience, and, finally, artificial intelligence.”
ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar commented, “The work of the 2026 Dirac Medallists has contributed to establishing theoretical physics, and particularly statistical mechanics, as a powerful framework to tackle a very broad range of questions that go far beyond its traditional domain of interest to encompass biology, computer science and artificial intelligence.”
The award describes Prof. Dhar’s contributions as “Deepak Dhar showed how simple interactions can lead to complex and sometimes unpredictable behaviour in large systems. Through his pioneering work on the sandpile model, for example, he described a familiar phenomenon: as grains are added to a sandpile, most result in no change or only small avalanches, while occasionally a single grain can cause a much larger collapse. The theory shows that the sandpile, like many other complex systems, spontaneously places itself in a critical regime where small effects can sometimes trigger large abrupt events and has been used to model systems as apparently different as earthquakes, traffic jams and fluctuations in financial markets.”
While congratulating Prof. Dhar, Centre Director Rajesh Gopakumar said, “Deepak receiving this award is not only a matter of pride for ICTS but for the country. The Dirac medal has been awarded to many who have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize. And this is only the second time that someone working in India has received this medal. The first being also none other than our Ashoke Sen. ICTS is therefore proud to host both Indians who have received this signal recognition. On behalf of everyone, my very warm congratulations to Deepak. Looking forward to his continuing association with ICTS and his wise mentoring.”
The 2026 Dirac Medal has an additional connection to ICTS. Both Bernard Derrida and Marc Mézard have visited ICTS and delivered lecture series, while Prof. Derrida is due to return in the coming months.