Akhouri Sinha is a professor at the University of Minnesota.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian-origin scientists are respected all over the world for their accomplishments in the field of medicine, research, academia, and so on – but one Indian American scientist now has the rare distinction of having a mountain named after him.
That’s right – University of Minnesota professor Akhouri Sinha is now the namesake of a mountain in Antarctica. The honor was bestowed upon him by the US Geological Survey (USGS) as a credit to Sinha’s storied body of work in Antarctic research, along with his numerous expeditions to the treacherously cold climate of the Earth’s chilliest continent.
“Mount Sinha is a tribute to hard work and no small amount of moxie on Sinha’s part,” said the University of Minnesota’s Colleen Smith, in an announcement post on the school’s official blog. “The next generation of scientists and conservationists have their work cut out for them.”
Sinha was a member of expeditions to Antarctica in 1972 and 1974, both of which were funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). While there, he studied shoreline animal populations such as native whale, bird, and seal species, surveying a total of roughly 100,000 nautical square miles of Antarctic coast.
In addition to his work with animals, Sinha was one of the key people to first raise the alarm on Antarctica’s depleting ice shelf. According to the University of Minnesota, “Records of population sizes, types and behaviors created by Sinha and his teammates have established critical baseline data that remain relevant in today’s climate change debates.”
Research conducted by Sinha helped form the basis of the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, which established the continent as an international scientific preserve to protect it from drilling and exploitation for oil, minerals, and other valuable natural resources. Sinha’s research was also heavily used for the UN’s early conservation policies to preserve Antarctica’s native wildlife.
Now, standing as a monument to his work in the arena of Antarctic research is Mount Sinha, located in the northern portion of the continent. Specifically, it lies at 75 degrees and four minutes south, and 136 degrees and nine minutes west, as part of the Erickson Bluffs on the southern part of the McDonald Heighs range.
Sinha is currently an adjunct professor of genetics, cell biology and development at the University of Minnesota. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and completed his Post-Doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His research interests include “studying characteristics of prostate cancer stem cells and aggressiveness of prostate cancer in addition to cell proliferation and cell death.”