Neeraj Kayal’s main interests include algebra, geometry, number theory and their applications in computer science. His recent work has been focused on optimal ways of computing arithmetic functions. Previously, Kayal was part of the team that discovered the first provably efficient algorithm for testing primality. He is a recipient of the Gödel prize and the Fulkerson Prize for this work, along with his co-authors. He was also given the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (where he completed his PhD in 2002) for his work in computational complexity theory.