BENGALURU: Srinivas R Kulkarni, an Indian-origin US scientist and brother of philanthropist Sudha Murty, has been awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2024 for his groundbreaking discoveries on millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae and other transient astronomical phenomena.
Shaw Prize is a global award presented the Shaw by Prize Foundation, Hong Kong, in the fields of astronomy, medicine and life sciences mathematical sciences.
The award citation stated that Kulkarni’s “contributions to time-domain astronomy culminated in the conception, construction, and leadership of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and its successor, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which have revolutionised our understanding of the time-variable optical sky.”
The 67-year-old Kulkarni currently serves as the George Ellery Hale Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology. He received his Master of Science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1978 and his PhD from the University of California in 1983.