Thanu Padmanabhan

( Mar 10 1957 - Sep 17 2021 )

Other Detail

Achievements

Thanu Padmanabhan (10 March 1957 – 17 September 2021) was an Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose research spanned a wide variety of topics in gravitation, structure formation in the universe and quantum gravity. He published nearly 300 papers and reviews in international journals and ten books in these areas. He made several contributions related to the analysis and modelling of dark energy in the universe and the interpretation of gravity as an emergent phenomenon. He was a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune, India. Born to Thanu Iyer and Lakshmi on 10 March 1957 in Thiruvananthapuram (then Trivandrum), Padmanabhan attended school there. He earned his B.Sc. (1977) and M.Sc. (1979) in Physics from the University College Thiruvananthapuram, part of Kerala University.He published his first research paper (on general relativity) when he was still a B.Sc. student, at the age of 20. He joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai in 1979 for his Ph.D. and became a faculty member there in 1980. He held various faculty positions at TIFR from 1980 to 1992 and also spent a year (in 1986–87) at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. He moved to Pune to work at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1992 and served as its Dean, Core Academic Programmes, for 18 years (1997–2015). Padmanabhan served as chairman (2006–09) of the Time Allocation Committee[6] of the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope of NCRA. He was chairman (2008–11) of the Indian National Science Academy's National Committee which interfaces with the activities of the International Astronomical Union. In addition to advising the Government on policy issues, this also required him to coordinate the International Year of Astronomy 2009 activities in the country. He died on 17 September 2021 at the age of 64 after a heart attack at his residence in Pune.[4][13] A tribute article written by his former graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and physics friends from college days has been posted on the Physics arXiv. He was married to Vasanthi Padmanabhan, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from TIFR, Mumbai, and they had one daughter, Hamsa Padmanabhan, who herself has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from IUCAA, Pune.

Profession

Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist

Address

Thiruvananthapuram, India