Noted astrophysicist Dr. Tarun Souradeep assumed charge as director of one of the leading institutes in the country, Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the spokesperson (science) for LIGO-India and member secretary of LIGO - India Scientific Management Board. He was one of the lead proposers of the national mega-science LIGO-IndIa project in 2011.
On taking over as director of RRI, Prof. Souradeep said, “It is an honour to be at helm of RRI - an institution with a very rich heritage and unique scientific legacy. It has nurtured a healthy balance of top-end research, together with technological capability that holds great promise for future frontier endeavour at par with the best in the world.”
Prior to this, he was professor and Chair of the Physics Department at the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. He did his Ph.D. at Pune’s Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and was a postdoctoral fellow at Kansas State University and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.
“He has succeeded in creating a strong, sustained Indian effort addressing issues at par with international research. The impact of the Indian team led by him is widely recognised both in the field of cosmology with frontline Cosmic Microwave Background experiments (CMB), and the emergent field of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy.” said RRI in the release.
It went on to note that Prof. Souradeep is a recipient of various awards including DST Swarnajayanti Fellowship, Gruber Cosmology Prize 2016 and 2018 and the Special breakthrough Prize for 2016. “He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. His election to the fellowship of the International Society on GeneralRelativity and Gravitation is a testament to his standing among his international peers,” it stated.
RRI is an autonomous institute funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Its main areas of research are astronomy and astrophysics, light and matter physics, soft condensed matter and theoretical physics.
