Shrinivas Kulkarni Explained

Shrinivas Kulkarni
Field:Astronomy
Birth Place:Kurundwad, Maharashtra, India
Birth Date:4 October 1956
Notable Students:Alicia M. Soderberg
Work Institution:California Institute of Technology

Shrinivas Ramchandra Kulkarni (born 4 October 1956) is a US-based astronomer born and raised in India.[1] He is a professor of astronomy and planetary science at California Institute of Technology,[2] and was director of Caltech Optical Observatory (COO) at California Institute of Technology, overseeing the Palomar and Keck among other telescopes. He is the recipient of a number of awards and honours.

Early life and education

Shrinivas Ramchandra Kulkarni was born on 4 October 1956 in the small town of Kurundwad in Maharashtra, into a Hindu family. His father, Dr. R. H. Kulkarni, was a surgeon based in Hubballi and his mother, Vimala Kulkarni, was a home-maker. He is one of four children and has three sisters, Sunanda Kulkarni, Sudha Murthy (educator, author, philanthropist and wife of one of the co-founders of Infosys) and Jaishree Deshpande (wife of Gururaj Deshpande).[3]

Kulkarni and his sisters grew up in Hubballi, Karnataka, and received their schooling at local schools there.[4] [5] [6] He obtained his MS in applied physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1978 and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983.

Career

In 1987, Kulkarni obtained a position as faculty at the California Institute of Technology. According to his website, he has mentored 64 young scholars by the end of 2016.

Kulkarni is known for making key discoveries that open new sub-fields within astronomy, using wide range of wavelength in observation. ADS shows that his papers cover following fields: (1) HI absorption studies of Milky Way Galaxy, (2) pulsars, millisecond pulsars, and globular cluster pulsars, (3) brown dwarfs and other sub-stellar objects, (4) soft gamma-ray repeaters, (5) gamma-ray bursts, and (6) optical transients. He made significant contributions in these sub-fields of astronomy.

Key discoveries

Kulkarni started off his career as a radio astronomer. He studied Milky Way Galaxy using HI absorption under the guidance of his advisor Carl Heiles, and observed its four arms.[7] The review articles he wrote with Carl Heiles have been highly cited in the field of interstellar medium.[8] [9]

He discovered the first millisecond pulsar called PSR B1937+21 with Donald Backer and colleagues, while he was a graduate student. In 1986, he found the first optical counterpart of binary pulsars, while he was a Millikan Fellow at California Institute of Technology. He was instrumental in discovery of the first globular cluster pulsar in 1987 using a supercomputer.

With Dale Frail at NRAO and Toshio Murakami and his colleagues at ISAS (predecessor of JAXA that was led by Yasuo Tanaka at that time) Kulkarni showed that soft gamma-ray repeaters are neutron stars associated with supernova remnants. This discovery eventually led to the understanding that neutron stars with extremely high magnetic field called magnetars are the soft gamma-ray repeaters.

Caltech-NRAO team which he led showed in 1997 that gamma-ray bursts came from extra-galactic sources, and identified optical counterparts. Their research initiated the detailed studies of the sources of gamma-ray bursts along with the European team led by Jan van Paradijs.

He was also a member of the Caltech team that observed the first irrefutable brown dwarf in 1994 that orbited around a star called Gliese 229.

His recent work involved Palomar Transient Factory which has succeeded in identifying the new groups of optical transients such as superluminous supernovae, calcium-rich supernovae, and luminous red novae.

The success of his astronomical research is evident by 63 Nature Letters, 7 Science Letters, and total of 479 refereed scientific articles that bear his name by the end of 2015, according to ADS. Recognizing his contribution to astronomy, he was awarded the Dan David Prize in 2017.[10]

Awards and honours

Kulkarni has received many awards and honours, including the NSF's Alan T. Waterman Award in 1992,[11] the Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society in1991, the Jansky Prize in 2002[12] and the Dan David Prize in 2017.[13] [14] In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate from Radboud University in the Netherlands.[15] In 2024, he was awarded the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.[16] [17]

Services to the field

Kulkarni has been the Jury Chair for the Infosys Prize for the discipline of Physical Sciences since 2009.[18] The prize is awarded by the Infosys Foundation, whose founder is Kulkarni's brother-in-law, Narayana Murthy.

Kulkarni is a member of as many as four national academies around the globe. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London, in 2001,[19] a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2003,[20] an honorary fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences in 2012,[21] and a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences on 12 September 2016.[22] [23]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: An accomplished observer . 2001 . Kembhavi . Ajit. Frontline.
  2. Web site: Shrinivas R. (Shri) Kulkarni. Caltech Geology and Planetary Science. 29 March 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170517101648/http://www.gps.caltech.edu/content/shrinivas-r-shri-kulkarni. 17 May 2017. dead.
  3. Web site: Two daughters who made India proud. www.leadcampus.org. 29 March 2017. 9 March 2017.
  4. Web site: Karnataka Online Teachers Data Base. 2012. Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences Karnataka.
  5. Web site: A star called Kulkarni. rediff.com. 19 August 2003.
  6. Web site: What Went Wrong?. 15 July 2002. Kamala Bhatt.
  7. Book: Kulkarni . Shrinivas R.. 1983 . Studies of galactica HI in 21-centimeter absorption (PhD Thesis: UC Berkeley). Berkeley, California. 1984PhDT.........4K.
  8. Book: Kulkarni. Shrinivas R.. Heiles . Carl . Neutral hydrogen and the diffuse interstellar medium. in Galactic and Extragalactic Radio Astronomy . 1988. 95–153 . Verschuur . G. L. . Kellerman . K.I. . New York . Springer-Verlag. 1988gera.book...95K.
  9. Book: Kulkarni . Shrinivas R.. Heiles. Carl. The atomic component. in Interstellar Processes; Proceedings of the Symposium, Grand Teton National Park, WY, July 1-7,1986. 134. 87–122. 1987. Dordrecht. D. Reidel Publishing Co.. 1987ASSL..134...87K. 10.1007/978-94-009-3861-8_5 . The Atomic Component. Astrophysics and Space Science Library. 978-90-277-2485-4.
  10. News: Indian scientist Shrinivas Kulkarni wins Dan David Prize. 18 May 2017. The Hindu. 18 May 2017.
  11. Web site: Alan T. Waterman Award Recipients, 1976 - present. American Astronomical Society. 29 November 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150302020546/http://www.nsf.gov/od/waterman/waterman_recipients.jsp#1992. 2 March 2015.
  12. Web site: Jansky Lectureship . science.nrao.edu. 24 August 2016.
  13. Web site: Caltech Astronomer Receives 2017 Dan David Prize. www.caltech.edu. 10 February 2017 .
  14. Web site: Laureates 2017. 27 March 2017. www.dandavidprize.org.
  15. Web site: Honorary Doctorate for astronomer Shrinivas Kulkarni . 2 June 2017.
  16. Web site: The Shaw Prize in Astronomy 2024. shawprize.org.
  17. Web site: Shaw Prize 2024. shawprize.org.
  18. Web site: Jury Chairs 2009 . Infosys Science Foundation . 29 March 2017 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170328200156/http://www.infosys-science-foundation.com/prize/jury/2009/index.asp . 28 March 2017 .
  19. Web site: The Royal Society inducts Shrinivas Kulkarni. rediff.com. 2001.
  20. Web site: Member Directory. National Academy of Science, US . 25 March 2017.
  21. Web site: Honorary Fellows. Indian Academy of Science. 25 March 2017.
  22. Web site: KNAW kiest zestien nieuwe leden . Dutch . Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences . 25 March 2017.
  23. Web site: Shrnivas Kulkarni . Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences . 25 March 2017.