Annapurni Subramaniam


Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam is an astronomer and currently serves as the director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. She is also the first woman astronomer to head the institute. She works on areas like star clusters, stellar evolution and population in galaxies and Magellanic clouds.

Education and early life

Subramaniam finished her schooling from Victoria College, Palakkad, in science. She did her PhD on the topic "Studies of star clusters and stellar evolution" from Indian Institute of Astrophysics in 1996. Subramaniam also plays the violin, sometimes as an accompanying artist to her father, Carnatic musician Palakkad K.S. Narayanaswamy.

Career

Subramaniam was a research fellow at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics from 1990 to 1996. She then became a postdoctoral fellow in 1998 at the institute and currently works as a professor and director of institute. She had also previously worked as Scientist-C at the IIA. She is an active member of the International Astronomical Union. She leads a research group that explores various stellar populations to study the structure, evolution and chemical enrichment of Magellanic Clouds. Subramaniam was also heavily involved with AstroSat, the first multi-wavelength space telescope mission from the Indian Space Research Organisation, where she served as the calibration scientist for the UV imaging telescope.

Field of research

Subramaniam's major field of research includes:
Her list of publications can be found on the .

Current projects

At Indian Institute of Astrophysics, her current projects include:

Awards