Dr Pankaj Joshi is currently Distinguished Professor of Physics and Founding Director of the International Center for Space and Cosmology at the Ahmedabad University. He was earlier a Senior Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, before joining Charusat University as their Vice-Chancellor. More popularly, he is known as a Scholar, Physicist, and an expert on Cosmology.

Research Interests

Professor Joshi’s research interests are general relativity and gravitation. He has made fundamental contributions to Blackhole Physics and Cosmology with his extensive analysis of final fate of massive collapsing stars in the universe. This work, widely recognised for providing significant insights, led to the discovery that massive stars end up in powerfully exploding fireballs, also called naked singularities, rather than blackholes. His research is reported in more than 250 research papers in International Journals of repute, and in books and monographs from OUP (Oxford), CUP (Cambridge), and others. The world-renowned Scientific American magazine published his work as their International cover story (2009), translated in more than 20 languages, also included in their Special Collector’s Editions (2013,17,22). Stanford University has placed him in their World Top 2% Scientists list for the past four years 2020-23 for his career achievement and contributions. Joshi has won several coveted awards and fellowships to scientific academies, holding Visiting Professorships in several countries, doing research and Lectures. He has been an adjunct faculty, fellow and visiting scientist to Cambridge, Harvard, New York University (NYU), U of Pittsburgh, U of Southampton, Osaka City U, U of Basque Country (Spain), U of Natal (SA), Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, Milano Polytechnic (Italy), U of Cincinnati, to name a few reputed ones.

Awards and Prizes

His prestigious awards and prizes include Gravity Research Foundation (USA) award, Prof A C Banerji Gold Medal and Memorial Lecture award (National Academy of Sciences), C V Raman lecture award by the Department of Atomic Energy, the reputed Vainu Bappu International Award (INSA), Shankar 1 Fellowship Award (Govt of MP), among others. He is an elected Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS, Europe), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA, New Delhi), National Academy of Sciences, India; and has been President of the Indian Association of General Relativity & Gravitation (IAGRG; 2010-12) and Gujarat Science Academy (GSA; 2020-23), with other such distinctions. Joshi has also contributed a large number of popular articles and books towards science outreach and has given many public talks and TV shows.