Dr. Pradhiman K. Kaw
Award Year: 1992 | Degree Year: 1966
Dr. Pradhiman K. Kaw was born on January 15, 1948. He had a brilliant academic record securing the first position in his Master’s degree. He completed his Ph.D. degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1966 in a span of 2 years and had the distinction of being the first student to be conferred a doctoral degree by the Institute.
He joined the University of Princeton as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in 1967 where he discovered the phenomenon of laser-induced anomalous heating of plasma and filamentation instability. He subsequently joined the research staff of the University of Princeton in the year 1969. Dr. Kaw came back to India in 1971 as an Associate Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and became Professor in 1974. Concurrently, he held the positions of National Lecturership, Visiting Professorship at Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Consultant at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the University of Cornell.
He was involved with the setting up of the Institute for Plasma Research – a National level Institute- in 1986. Under his leadership as the Founder Director, the Institute is recognized for its work in several frontier areas of research in Plasma Physics.
Dr. Kaw was first to demonstrate the coalescence instability in a chain of magnetic islands, critical to Tokamak Plasmas. He investigated the stability of dissipative drift waves in sheared magnetic fields, which led to the crucial re-examination of the toroidal effects in drift instabilities. In his more recent work, he has found novel non-abelian plasma oscillations in quark-gluon plasmas- a subject of considerable interest in high-energy heavy-ion collision experiments.
A number of honors, titles, and distinctions have been bestowed on him, including Honorary Doctor of Science by the Gent University of Belgium in 1991. He is a Fellow/Member of several national and international Science Societies/Academies and Committees.
During his distinguished career as a scientist, Dr. Kaw has written over 150 research papers. He is presently the Associate Editor of Journal of Plasma Physics (U.K.). In recognition of his distinguished contributions to the growth of science in this country, he was awarded Padma Shri in 1985 and Bhatnagar Price in 1986.
In honoring Dr. Pradhiman K. Kaw, we recognize the conspicuous contributions made by an alumnus of I.I.T. Delhi as an outstanding scientist, an able administrator, and a planner, who has carried a name for himself in the international scientific community.
Sir, I pray that Dr. Kaw be conferred the Distinguished Alumni Award of I.I.T. Delhi for the year 1992.
