2009 Physical Sciences Jury
Jury Chair
Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni
John D. & Catherine T. McArthur Professor of Astronomy & Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Prof. Kulkarni's primary interests are the study of compact objects (neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts) and the search for extra-solar planets through interferometric and adaptive techniques. He serves as the Interdisciplinary Scientist for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and is co-PI of the Planet Search Key Project (also on SIM). He has been awarded the Alan T. Waterman Prize of the NSF, a fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a Presidential Young Investigator award from the NSF and the Helen B. Warner award of the American Astronomical Society and the Janksy Prize of Associated Universities, Inc. Prof. Kulkarni was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994), Fellow of the Royal Society of London (2001) and Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (2003).
Jurors
Prof. Dan McKenzie
Professor of Earth Sciences at Cambridge University
Prof. McKenzie has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the lithosphere, particularly Plate Tectonics and Sedimentary Basin Formation. This seminal work resulted in McKenzie being awarded the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He has recently focused on the study of lithospheres of Venus, Mars and Moon and separately to understand the nature of melts. McKenzie is Fellow of the Royal Society.
Prof. J. V. Narlikar
Founder Director, now Emeritus Professor, Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Prof. Narlikar is a theoretical physicist widely known for fundamental contributions to astrophysics and cosmology. Along with Sir Fred Hoyle Narlikar proposed an alternative to the Big Bang theory. He headed an international team which undertook and found evidence for micro-organisms in the stratosphere. An intriguing possibility is that the organisms could have arrived from space. Narlikar has authored or co-authored a hundred books (professional, science popularization, fiction). Narlikar is a member of three Indian academies of sciences and Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Frank Wilczek
Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics,Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Prof. Wilczek received his B.S. degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He taught at Princeton from 1974-81. He was the Chancellor Robert Huttenback Professor of Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1981-88, and the first permanent member of the National Science Foundation's Institute for Theoretical Physics. He has received UNESCO's Dirac Medal, the American Physical Society's Sakurai Prize, the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society , the Michelson Prize from Case Western University, and the Lorentz Medal of the Netherlands Academy for his contributions to the development of theoretical physics. In 2004 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics as a graduate student for his work on asymptotic freedom (essential in understanding strong forces), and in 2005 the King Faisal Prize. Wilczek's contribution include the invention of axions, development of quantum chromodynamics and exploration of new kinds of quantum statistics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Netherlands Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Trustee of the University of Chicago. Two of his pieces have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing (2003, 2005).
Prof. K R Sreenivasan
Abdus Salam Honorary Professor and Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy
Prof. Sreenivasan is well known for wide-ranging contributions to physics and engineering: turbulence in fluids (especially the application of fractals and multifractals), reacting flows, cryogenic helium and nonlinear dynamics. He is Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, member of the US National Academy of Engineering, member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, among others. He has received a number of awards and honors, including, most recently, the 2008 Nicholson Medal from the American Physical Society.
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