1981/M.Sc/PH Associate Director, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, Bert Elsbach Professor of Physics & Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, USA ; Professor of Gravitational Physics, Cardiff University, UK Pennsylvania, USA
Professor B. S. Sathyaprakash obtained his undergraduate degree (in Physics) from Bangalore University in 1979 and his Master’s degree (in Physics) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1981, before completing his thesis work (in Physics) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1987. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow initially at IISc (during 1988-89), later at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune (during 1989-91), and lastly at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy (during 1992-93). He returned to IUCAA (during 1993-95) to work as Scientist C, before taking up a visiting fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA (in 1996). In 1996, he joined the School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, UK as a member of the faculty and has been a Professor of Gravitational Physics at the university since 2003.
At present (since 2016), he holds simultaneous positions as a Professor at Cardiff University at the Department of Physics, and also at Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently the Elsbach Professor of Physics as well as the Associate Director, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at Pennsylvania State University. Over the last twenty-five years, Prof. Sathyaprakash’s research has been focused on the physics related to Gravitational Waves (GWs). He has been involved in developing algorithms for their detection, constructing effective methods for the analysis of voluminous data from the LIGO and Virgo GW observatories, and, more recently, towards planning future GW observatories. Also, he was involved in the Nobel-prize winning discovery of gravitational waves.
Prof. Sathyaprakash’s research carried out in close collaboration with the groups at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune and Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, during the 1990s and the 2000s — on the construction of template banks and GW astrophysics played a critical role in the eventual detection of GWs, in 2015. His work has also led to significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the astrophysical implications of the GW observations and, importantly, in the strong-field tests of general relativity and the first observation of binary black holes.
He has played a pioneering role in the detailed study of the detector sensitivity and detector science goals for many mega-projects such as advanced LIGO, Cosmic Explorer, the Einstein Telescope, and the planned Indian GW detector LIGO-India. He is a member of the GW International Committee’s team to study the feasibility and science goals of a network of third-generation (3G) GW interferometers.
Prof. Sathyaprakash has over 200 publications, including highly cited reviews, with an h-index of 92. He has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) by the APS Council of Representatives at its September meeting upon the recommendation of the APS Division of Gravitational Physics (DGRAV) in 2019.
For his exemplary accomplishments in academia; “for leadership in and wide-ranging contributions to gravitational wave science”, IIT Madras and its Alumni are proud to confer this award upon Prof. B.S. Satyaprakash.
