Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is an Indian-born American economist who is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), an MIT based global research center promoting the use of scientific evidence to inform poverty alleviation strategies. In 2019, Banerjee shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." He and Esther Duflo are married, and became the sixth married couple to jointly win a Nobel or Nobel Memorial Prize.

The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to recognize research. The prize for each category includes a gold medallion, a citation certificate, and prize money of US$100,000. The prize purse is tax free in the hands of winners in India. The winners are selected by the jury of their respective categories, headed by the jury chairs.