Almost two dozen Indian Americans, including some alumni ofleading Indian universities, were among those named Tuesday by the White Houseas winners of the highest US award for rising stars of the world of science andtechnology, at the frontiers of new research and ideas.

Many of them them were so surprised, they refused tobelieve. Padmini Rangamani, who is at the University of California, San Diegoand is visiting India currently, said she thought it was a prank when reachedfor comments. Another person wrote back saying it was probably some one elsewith the same name.

The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists andEngineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States on“outstanding” scientists and engineers who are just getting started in theirrespective independent research careers and show “exceptional promise” forleadership in science and technology, according to the White Houseannouncement. The awards were announced in the name of President Donald Trump,who will also present them at a later date as has been the practice.

Others named were Sanjay Basu, Stanford University; ShafaliJeste, University of California - Los Angeles; Suveen Mathaudhu, University ofCalifornia - Riverside; Piya Pal, University of California - San Diego; DhruvBatra, Georgia Institute of Technology; Subbian Panayampalli, National Center forEmerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Vivek Agarwal, Idaho NationalLaboratory; Gaurav Bahl and Prashant Jain, University of Illinois -Urbana-Champaign; Anish Thomas, National Institutes of Health; Varun Verma,National Institute of Standards and Technology Physical Measurement Laboratory;Barna Saha and University of Massachusetts; Yogesh Surendranath, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology; Bharat Jalan, University of Minnesota; ArvindNarayanan, Princeton University; Sandeep Mallipattu, Stony Brook School ofMedicine; Priya Rajasethupathy, Rockefeller University; Neville Sanjana, NewYork Genome Center; Sohini Ramachandran, Brown University; Anita Shukla, BrownUniversity; Meenakshi Madhur, Vanderbilt University; and Nitya Kallivayalil,University of Virginia.