Prof Shrinivas R. Kulkarni
Award Year: 1996 | Degree Year: 1978
Professor Shrinivas R. Kulkarni was born on 4th October 1956. He received the M.S. (Physics) in 1978 from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He obtained Ph.D. (Astronomy) in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Professor Kulkarni was a Post-Doctoral Fellow during 1983-85 in Radio Astronomy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley. He was a Robert A. Millikan Fellow from 1985 to 1987 in Radio Astronomy Laboratory, Caltech. Pasadena, USA and became Professor in 1992. During 1992-95, he was on Visiting Positions for short durations to various Universities.
Prof. Kulkarni has made many pioneering contributions in the field of Astronomy. Prof. Kulkarni shot into prominence in the early 1980s with his discovery (as part of a team) of millisecond pulsars which are collapsed neutron stars. This has revolutionized the field of pulsars since such short period pulsars provide an extremely accurate clock in the Universe. He is currently working in Optical Interferometry. One of his recent results is the discovery of brown dwarfs which are “stars” that do not have enough mass to have a sufficiently high temperature at the center in order to produce nuclear energy.
During a distinguished career, Prof. Kulkarni has published a large number of research papers, reviews, books and popular articles related to Astronomy, Neutron stars Pulsars, X-Ray Binaries, High-Resolution Imaging at Optical and IR wavelengths, Instrumentation-Signal Processing, Pulsar Timing and Interstellar Medium Galactic and Extragalactic.
He has received numerous honors and awards. The list includes the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Vaina Bappu Memorial Award, Helen B. Warner Prize, Alan T. Waterman Award, and many others. He has been a member of various Professional Services such as X-Ray Timing Explorer Science Working Group, NASA; Arecibo Scientific Advisory Committee, NAIC; Hubble Space Telescope Strategy Panel STScI; VLTI Tiger Team, ESO; and NRAO Users Group.
In honoring Prof. Kulkarni, we recognize the outstanding contributions made by an alumnus of IIT Delhi as an Astronomer and Scientist who has earned a name in the international community, and through achievement, brought glory to the name of the Institute.
