LONDON, Jan 12: US-based astronomer Professor Shrinivas Kulkarni has been awarded the prestigious Gold Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in London for his pioneering work in time-domain astronomy.
Born in Maharashtra, Kulkarni is the George Ellery Hale Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Over his 40-year career at Caltech, he has made landmark discoveries including brown dwarfs, remote gamma-ray bursts, and the first millisecond pulsar. His 1997 work confirmed that powerful gamma-ray bursts originate outside the Milky Way.
Kulkarni led the development of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and its successor, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which have captured thousands of real-time cosmic events, revolutionizing time-domain astrophysics at optical wavelengths. He has also designed ten astronomical instruments and is currently developing NASA’s Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) mission, planned for 2030, and Z-Shooter, a versatile spectrometer for the Keck Observatory.
His RAS Gold Medal citation recognizes his “sustained, innovative and ground-breaking contributions to multi-wavelength transient astrophysics,” joining the ranks of past laureates such as Stephen Hawking, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Albert Einstein, and Edwin Hubble. Recently, he also received the 2024 Shaw Prize in Astronomy. Kulkarni expressed gratitude to his collaborators and the teams behind PTF and ZTF, crediting them for his success.
An IIT Delhi graduate with a PhD from UC Berkeley, Kulkarni has dedicated his career to exploring transient phenomena and advancing humanity’s understanding of the dynamic universe.
This year, RAS awarded its Gold Medal in Geophysics to Professor Andrew Jackson of ETH Zurich. (PTI)
