Sriram Rajagopal Ramaswamy FRS (born 10 November 1957) is a professor at the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

and was on leave (2012–16) as Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Education

Ramaswamy completed high school at the Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, and then moved to the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

with high honours in 1977. He completed his PhD in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, graduating in 1983. He completed

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Research

Ramaswamy is a theoretician whose research investigates nonequilibrium statistical physics, soft matter,

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the sub ...

and

biological physics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study Biology, biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from Molecule, molecular to organismic ...

. His research helped found the field of

active matter Active matter is matter composed of large numbers of active "agents", each of which consumes energy in order to move or to exert mechanical forces. Such systems are intrinsically out of thermal equilibrium. Unlike thermal systems relaxing toward ...

, which studies the

motility Motility is the ability of an organism to move independently, using metabolic energy. Definitions Motility, the ability of an organism to move independently, using metabolic energy, can be contrasted with sessility, the state of organisms th ...

and related collective behaviour of objects that convert local energy input into autonomous motion. He is widely known for formulating the

hydrodynamic In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...

equations governing the alignment, flow, mechanics and statistical properties of suspensions of self-propelled creatures, on scales from a cell to the ocean. Key predictions—that macroscopically aligned

flocks Flocking is the behaviour exhibited when a group of birds, called a flock, are foraging or in flight. Computer simulations and mathematical models that have been developed to emulate the flocking behaviours of birds can also generally be applie ...

of swimming bacteria are impossible, and that the addition of swimmers to a fluid can make the

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

arbitrarily small—have been confirmed in recent experiments. His insight into nonliving imitations of self-propulsion has led to design principles for

chemotactic Chemotaxis (from '' chemo-'' + ''taxis'') is the movement of an organism or entity in response to a chemical stimulus. Somatic cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms direct their movements according to certain chemical ...

colloid A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others extend ...

s, the first experiments observing giant number fluctuations in flocks, and the creation of flocks with a tiny minority of motile constituents.

Awards and honours

Among the awards he has received for his research are the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, Applied science, applied or Fundamenta ...

in 2000 and the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to re ...

for Physical Sciences in 2011. He also served on the Physical Sciences jury for the

in 2014. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: He was awarded one of the

H K Firodia awards H. K. Firodia Awards for excellence in science and technology are given annually by the H. K. Firodia Foundation. The awards were initiated in 1996 to recognize achievements by Indian scientists in any field of science, and aim to promote a scien ...

for 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramaswamy, Sriram Rajagopal Living people Fellows of the Royal Society 1957 births American people of Indian descent Indian theoretical physicists 21st-century American physicists 20th-century Indian physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society