Professor Shrinivas Kulkarni, a world-renowned Indian-American astronomer, has been awarded the prestigious 2026 Gold Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in London. This honour recognizes his "field-defining" discoveries and "sustained, innovative, and ground-breaking contributions" to time-domain astronomy, the study of cosmic objects that change, blink, or explode over short periods.
By receiving the RAS’s highest honour, which has been awarded annually since 1824, Kulkarni joins the ranks of scientific icons such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Edwin Hubble, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
Everything you need to know about Shrinivas Kulkarni
- Current Role: George Ellery Hale Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
- Academic Roots: He earned his Master’s from IIT Delhi in 1978 and his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1983. He has been a fixture at Caltech for over 40 years, joining the faculty in 1985.
- Key discoveries:
- Millisecond Pulsars: As a graduate student, he co-discovered the first millisecond pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star, an achievement he describes as the "most fun" of his life.
- Brown Dwarfs: He was instrumental in identifying the first clear examples of these "failed stars".
- Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs): In 1997, he demonstrated that these incredibly powerful explosions originate far outside our own galaxy.
- Building the "Gizmos": Kulkarni has built 10 scientific instruments throughout his career, driven by his motto: "Build a big enough gizmo and things will happen". He led the development of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which scan the entire Northern sky every two nights.
- Ongoing and Future Missions: NASA’s Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX): Currently developing this mission (targeted for a 2030 launch) to perform the most sensitive ultraviolet sky survey to date.
- Z-Shooter: Serving as the principal investigator for this powerful spectrometer destined for the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, with "first light" expected in 2029.
A career of groundbreaking achievements
Reflecting on the honour, Professor Kulkarni expressed surprise and gratitude, specifically thanking the engineering crews and collaborators of the PTF and ZTF projects. His work has fundamentally shifted how we view the night sky, transforming it from a static map into a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of real-time cosmic events.
Kulkarni’s accolades extend beyond the RAS Gold Medal; he was also recently awarded the 2024 Shaw Prize in Astronomy. His leadership at Caltech, including his 12-year tenure as Director of the Caltech Optical Observatories (2006–2018), has ensured that the next generation of telescopes and sensors continues to push the boundaries of what we can see in the deep universe.
While Kulkarni’s work illuminates the stars, the RAS also recognised achievements closer to home, awarding the Gold Medal in Geophysics to Professor Andrew Jackson of ETH Zurich for his instrumental research in geomagnetism.
