JURY > 2010 > Physical Sciences

2010 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), USA
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, UK
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. T. V. Ramakrishnan

Hindustan Lever Research Professor, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; Distinguished Associate, Centre for Condensed Matter Theory, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Professor T. V. Ramakrishnan is known for his work in the field of Condensed Matter Physics eg localization of electrons in disordered systems and the theory of freezing of fluids. His present interests are in the areas of strongly correlated electron systems and high temperature superconductivity. Ramakrishnan is the recipient of several national and international awards including the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award for Physical Sciences in 1982 and the Trieste Science Prize in 2005. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy , New Delhi (1984),and the Royal Society, London (2000). He is also a Foreign Member of the French Academy of Sciences (2005) and a past president of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore ( 2004-2006).

Prof. Frank Wilczek

Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
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).

Harry B. Gray

Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and the Founding Director of the Beckman Institute, California Institute of Technology, USA
After graduate work at Northwestern University and postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen, he joined the chemistry faculty at Columbia University, where in the early 1960s he developed ligand field theory to interpret the electronic structures and substitution reactions of metal complexes. After moving to Caltech in 1966, he began work in biological inorganic chemistry and solar photochemistry, including the development of inorganic systems for energy storage. Working with Ru-modified proteins in the early 1980s, he demonstrated that electrons can tunnel rapidly over long molecular distances through folded polypeptide structures; and, in the years following, he and J. R. Winkler developed laser flash-quench methods that opened the way for experimental investigations that have led to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of electron flow through proteins that function in respiration and photosynthesis. Gray has published over 750 research papers and 17 books. He has received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan (1986); the Pauling Medal (1986); the Linderstrøm-Lang Prize (1992); the Gibbs Medal (1992); the Harvey Prize (2000); the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences (2003); the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2004); the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2004); the City of Florence Prize in Molecular Sciences (2006); the Welch Award in Chemistry (2009); six national awards from the American Chemical Society, including the Priestley Medal (1991); and 16 honorary doctorates, including ones from Pennsylvania, Chicago, Columbia, Florence, Copenhagen, and Edinburgh. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the Royal Society of Great Britain; and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation since 1994.