Ajit Kembhavi

Short Bio

Ajit Kembhavi is the Principal Investigator of the Pune Knowledge Cluster, along with Professor L. S. Shashidhara. Kembhavi is a Professor Emeritus and former Raja Ramanna Fellow at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. He was Director there until August 2015. He did his Ph. D. from TIFR, Mumbai with Professor Jayant Narlikar, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Professor Kembhavi is a distinguished astronomer who works on galaxies, quasars and other extragalactic objects, various areas of high energy astrophysics, X-ray and radio pulsars. He has published a large number of research papers and several books in English and Marathi, the latter including a He has co-authored a popular science book in Marathi on “Gravitational waves: a new window to the Universe” with Dr. Pushpa Khare. The book has bagged the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule award given by the government of Maharashtra for the year 2018.

Professor Kembhavi is involved in many international collaborations and for several years has been involved with the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) Project and the LIGO India projects. He is now on the Apex Committees of these projects and a member of the LIGO USA Oversight Committee.

In the field of data driven science, Professor Kembhavi has led the Virtual Observatory-India project for fifteen years, which has made important contributions to data management, analysis, visualisation and the development of tools for statistical analysis, much of which was done in collaboration with Anand Deshpande and Persistent Systems Ltd. He now is head of a Big Data project supported by the National Knowledge Network (NKN), and works on applications of Deep learning to astronomy and biology.

Professor Kembhavi has been a member of the Space Commission and is presently a member of the ISRO’s Apex Science Board. He is Former Vice-President of the International Astronomical Union and former President, Astronomical Society of India. He is the President of Jyotirvidya Parisanstha, Poona India's oldest association of Amateur Astronomers established in 1944. He was Chair of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance, Chair of the Scientific Council of the Astronomical Data Centre at Strasbourg and Chair of the Council of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, India.


Wikipedia: Ajit Kembhavi

Astronomer, Emeritus Professor-IUCAA & Pricipal Invistigator-PKC.

Personal Life: Ajit Kembhavi is married to Asha Kembhavi, a bio-technologist. They have a son Annirudh Kembhavi, who works at the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence.

  • Age: 72
  • Email: akk@iucaa.in
  • City: Pune, India

Areas of research

Prof. Kembhavi's areas of expertise largely include gravitation theory, extragalactic astronomy and astronomical database management. His contributions include:

  • Gravity: Elucidating nature of cosmological singularities under conformal transformations (done as a part of his PhD thesis)
  • Quasars: Estimation of quasars to the X-ray background.
  • X-Ray Binaries: Study of the tidal capture formation of globular cluster X-ray binaries, and their subsequent evolution millisecond and other pulsars
  • Pulsars: Pulsar magnetic field decay from a comparison between observed data and simulations
  • Galaxies: Quantitative study of galaxy morphology, scaling relations etc.
  • Warm Absorbers: Comprehensive high resolution X-ray spectral study of warm absorbers in Seyfert galaxies observed with ESA's X-ray observatory XMM-Newton, theoretical modelling using photo-ionisation code CLOUDY, understanding the effect of ionizing continuum shape on the properties of warm absorbers, and stability curve analysis of the warm absorbers.

Honours, awards and memberships

  • Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences
  • Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences
  • Former President of the Astronomical Society of India
  • Vice President of the International Astronomy Union (2016–2021)
  • Former President of the Indian Association of General Relativity and Gravitation
  • Recipient of the UGC Hari Om Vats award for academic interaction with Society (2004)
  • Raja Ramana Fellowship (2017)
  • Former Chairman of the Governing Board of the Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), New Delhi
  • Member of the Governing Council and Court of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
  • Member of the Space Commission of India
  • President of Jyotirvidya Parisanstha, Poona
  • Chairman of the Governing Council of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru

Books

  • Highlights in Gravitation and Cosmology. Eds. B.R. Iyer, A. Kembhavi, J.V. Narlikar & C.V. Vishveshwara, 1988. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • Non Standard Cosmology (Revised Edition). J.V. Narlikar & A.K. Kembhavi, 1988. In Galaxies & Cosmology, Eds. V.M. Canuto & B.G. Elmegreen. Gorden & Breach.
  • Gravitation and Cosmology. Eds. S. Mukherjee, A.R. Prasanna & A.K. Kembhavi, 1992. Wiley Eastern.
  • Starbursts : Triggers, Nature and Evolution. (Proc. of Les Houches School), 1998. Eds. B. Guiderdoni & A.K. Kembhavi. Springer.
  • Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei - An Introduction. A.K. Kembhavi & J.V. Narlikar. 1999. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • The Universe - Visions and Perspectives. Eds. N. Dadhich & A.K. Kembhavi, 2000. Kluwer.
  • Nabhat Hasare Taare: A book on Astrophysics of stars in Marathi. A.K. Kembhavi, J. V. Narlikar & Mangala Narlikar. Rajhans Prakashan 2008. A Gujarati translation of this book has been published.
  • Gurutviya Tarang: Vishwadarshanache nave sadhan Pushpa Khare & A.K.Kembhavi 2020. Rajhans Prakashan 2020.
  • Gravitational Waves: A New Window to the Universe. A.K. Kembhavi & Pushpa Khare 2020. Springer.

Contact

Location:

IUCAA, Post Bag 4 Ganeshkhind, Savitribai Phule Pune University Campus Pune 411 007, India

Call:

+91-20-25604100