It is our pleasure to announce that, Dr.Manas Ranjan Panda has received ‘The Oskar for String Bio Best Thesis’ award by the IITB-Monash Research Academy for the year 2021. Manas’s Ph.D. was focused on exploring advanced electrodes from 2D layered materials for Li/Na-ion battery applications under the supervision of Prof. Mainak Majumder (Monash University, Australia) and Prof. Sagar Mitra (IIT Bombay, India). The NSEL group would like to congratulate Manas on his achievement.