Thanu Padmanabhan

Thanu Padmanabhan (born 10 March 1957, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) () is an Indian theoretical physicist. He is currently Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, (IUCAA) at Pune, India. His principal fields of research are Cosmology and the interface between Gravity and Quantum theory. He is also the recipient of the inaugural Infosys Prize in the category of Physical Sciences.

Life and career

Padmanabhan did his schooling in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) and did his B.Sc (1977) and his M.Sc (1979) in Physics from University College, Kerala University, securing Gold Medals for his academic achievements. He published his first research paper (on general relativity) when he was a B.Sc student, at the age of 20. He joined TIFR, Mumbai for PhD and became a faculty member there in 1980 where he continued till 1992. He moved to IUCAA in 1992 and is currently the Dean of Core Academic Programmes.

He has served as visiting faculty at many institutes including theCalifornia Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune and the Pennsylvania State University as well as the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

He is married to Dr. Vasanthi Padmanabhan, who has a Ph.D in astrophysics from TIFR, Mumbai and has one daughter, Hamsa Padmanabhan.

Research contributions

Padmanabhan has worked in several contemporary areas of theoretical physics likequantum......
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