Alak Ray is an Indian astronomer and high energy astrophysicist, who works on neutron stars,

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

e and GRBs.

Education

Alak Ray received his B.Sc. degree from Calcutta University in 1970. He earned his Ph.D. (1979) at the Columbia University, under the supervision of

Malvin Ruderman Malvin Avram Ruderman (born March 25, 1927) is an American physicist and astrophysicist. Education Mal Ruderman received his A.B. degree from Columbia University in 1945. His MS degree (1947) and PhD (1951) are from the California Institute of T ...

Career

During 1979-1981, Ray worked at University of California, Irvine as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. In 1981 he moved back to India to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, where he served as Reader, Associate Professor and then Professor. Between the years of 1996 and 1998, he took a sabbatical as Senior Research Associate at NASA's

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...

. With Brian Cameron and Poonam Chandra in 2004, Ray discovered the first radio counterpart of a Soft gamma repeater, SGR 1806−20. Along with Alicia Soderberg and Sayan Chakraborti in 2009, Ray discovered the first relativistic outflow from a

Supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

without a detected Gamma-ray burst. In collaboration with Sayan Chakraborti, Naveen Yadav, and Carolin Cardamone in 2012, Ray discovered the presence of strong magnetic fields in Green Pea Galaxies. At the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Ray supervised the doctoral research of many researchers, including

Nandivada Rathnasree Nandivada Rathnasree (26 November 1963 – 9 May 2021) or N. Rathnasree was an Indian astrophysicist, science communicator, and science historian, who was the director of India's Nehru Planetarium for over twenty years. She was responsible for ...

who was elected the Director of the

Nehru Planetarium Nehru Planetariums are the five planetariums in India, named after India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. These are located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and Bangalore, plus there is a Jawahar Planetarium in Prayagraj, where Nehru was bor ...

, and Sayan Chakraborti who was elected Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. His webpage at the Tata Institute shows that his other doctoral students include Firoza Sutaria, Poonam Chandra and Naveen Yadav.

Honors

Ray was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2014. He was elected to the International Astronomical Union in 1985.Member
Since 1985 ('' International Astronomical Union'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ray, Alak Indian astrophysicists Columbia University alumni Indian scientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)