Neeraj Kayal obtained his B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2001 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and is currently a Doctoral student in the same department. As a B Tech student, Neeraj Kayal was part of the team that recently announced a polynomial time algorithm for primality testing. This solves one of the most outstanding open problems of Mathematics and Computer Science - as prime numbers play a pivotal role in all the areas of mathematics and computer science. The result is now considered as the biggest advancement in a decade in computational number theory. What has astounded the scientific community is the elegance of the solution - the algorithm is only thirteen lines long, and its proof of correctness takes less than three pages.

Neeraj is a very gifted individual. Besides doing excellently in his field of study, computer science, he has also demonstrated his talent in mathematics. Neeraj was also selected for Indian National Mathematics Olympiad, 1997. He was awarded the National Talent Search Scholarship, as well as the Jagadis Bose National Science Talent Search Scholarship, both in 1996. What, however, distinguishes him from the majority, is the motivation and dedication to work at hard problems. By carrying out the outstanding work on primality testing, Neeraj has undoubtedly done IIT Kanpur and its alumni immensely proud. He, along with his team members, has demonstrated in the most decisive fashion that the very best possible research work can be done at IIT Kanpur.

Neeraj Kayal has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions in Complexity Theory by developing a Polynomial Time Algorithm for Primality Testing.