The American Astronomical Society (AAS) awarded Kolkata based solar physicist Dibyendu Nandi with the prestigious Karen Harvey Prize 2012 for his twin achievements “Advances in the use of Kinematic Dynamo Models to elucidate the Typical Solar Cycle” and ” Outstanding Leadership within the Solar Physics and Space Climate Communities”. He has done his research with the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata. With this, he becomes the first space scientist from the Asia Pacific region to be awarded with this prize.
The prize includes a cash award of Rs. 57000, which he has decided to contribute towards a student fund. The main thrust of his discovery is that the sun’s memory regarding its past activity is very short. This implies that very long term forecasting of solar activity and space weather is ruled out. He has published a series of papers on solar activity, including one that explained for the first time the disappearance of sunspots. He is a part of ISRO’s Aditya mission to the sun, which is slated for lift off later this year or in 2013.
A PhD Degree holder in the field of solar physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, he has invested his seven years in US based Montana State University working on various NASA projects. In May 2002, the Karen Harvey Prize honors’ a solar physicist who was president of the Solar Physics Research Corporation and treasurer of the solar physics division.
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