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Indian-origin US professor Shrinivas R Kulkarni awarded 2024 Shaw Prize in Astronomy
The Shaw Prize has been awarded to a total of 37 Astronomy Laureates from 2004 to 2024.
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Shrinivas R Kulkarni was chosen for the prize for his work around millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and other variable or transient astronomical objects. / Infosys Science Foundation
Indian-American professor Shrinivas R Kulkarni will be bestowed the 2024 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the foundation for the award announced in Hong Kong on May.21.
Kulkarni, who serves as the George Ellery Hale Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology, has been selected for his work around millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and other variable or transient astronomical objects.
“His contributions to time-domain astronomy culminated in the conception, construction and leadership of the Palomar Transient Factory and its successor, the Zwicky Transient Facility, which has revolutionized our understanding of the time-variable optical sky,” the foundation said in a statement.
“Discovering and analysing transient events — the subject of time-domain astronomy — is a challenging task that requires sifting through vast databases, identifying rare anomalies, discarding false positives from terrestrial events and other sources, and notifying the astronomy community, ideally within minutes, to enable follow-up studies from other telescopes,” the statement continued.
As a student, Kulkarni and his collaborators discovered the first millisecond pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star that emitted precisely spaced pulses over 600 times per second, the foundation noted.
Pulsars are the most precise astronomical clocks in the universe, and are used to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity and to look for gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes.
“In 1997, Kulkarni and his collaborators made a critical breakthrough by determining the distance to a gamma-ray burst. They showed that the burst originated in the distant universe, far beyond our own Galaxy, and so must have been an extremely energetic event. We now know that most gamma-ray bursts come from similar distances.”
The prize carries a cash reward of $1.2 million and the award ceremony will be held in Hong Kong on Nov.12.
The #ShawPrize in #Astronomy 2024 is awarded to Shrinivas R Kulkarni for his ground-breaking discoveries about millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, & other variable or transient astronomical objects.
— The Shaw Prize (@ShawPrize) May 21, 2024
Congratulations, Dr. Kulkarni!@Caltech pic.twitter.com/IkYlPZd95M
Kulkarni was born in a small town called Kurundwad in Maharashtra and grew up in Hubli, Karnataka. After finishing his MS from the IIT Delhi, Kulkarni moved to the US to complete his PhD from the University of California.
The astronomy professor had also served as the director of Caltech Optical Observatory from 2006 to 2018.
Scott Tremaine, who presided over the 2024 Shaw Prize selection committee, said Kulkarni should also be praised for his conscious efforts to democratize astronomy by readily making data from his telescopes available to astronomers from around the world.
The Shaw Prize, also known as the Nobel for the East, is administered by the Shaw Prize Foundation and awarded annually since 2004. The foundation was established by philanthropist Run Run Shaw, who was a popular film and television figure in Hong Kong.
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