Shyam Sunder Kapoor | |
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| Born | (1938-06-14)14 June 1938 (age 87) India |
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| Known for | Studies onnuclear fission and heavy-ion physics |
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Shyam Sunder Kapoor (born 14 June 1938) is an Indian nuclear physicist and a former director ofBhabha Atomic Research Centre. Known for his research onfission and heavy-ion physics, Kapoor is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies –Indian Academy of Sciences,Indian National Science Academy andNational Academy of Sciences, India – as well as theInstitute of Physics. TheCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to Physical Sciences in 1983.[1][note 1]
S. S. Kapoor, born on 14 June 1938, earned an MSc fromAgra University in physics in 1958 before starting his career in 1959 atBhabha Atomic Research Centre (then known as Atomic Energy Establishment).[2] While on service, he pursued his doctoral studies mentored byRaja Ramanna, who would later spearhead India's first successful nuclear program,Smiling Buddha, in 1974.[3] After securing a PhD in 1963, he took a sabbatical from work and did his post-doctoral studies innuclear fission atLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of theUniversity of California, Berkeley from 1964 where he worked at thecyclotron accelerator and returned to BARC in 1966 to resume his service. He became the director in charge of Physics Group as well as Electronics and Instrumentation Group in 1990 and served out his regular service at BARC, holding the position until his superannuation in 2000.[4] He also served as the head of the nuclear physics division and as the project director of Pelletron Accelerator facility, a BARC centre located inTata Institute of Fundamental Research campus.[2] In between, he had a short stint abroad as a visiting scientist at Physikalische Institute of theUniversity of Heidelberg during 1980–81. Post-retirement, he continued his association with BARC, holding theDAE-Homi Bhabha chair from 2000 to 2005.[2] Subsequently, he took up the position of a senior scientist withIndian National Science Academy and in June 2008, he was made an honorary scientist by the academy.[5]
Kapoor lives with his family inDeonar, a suburban town ofMumbai, inMaharashtra.[6] He has a son and a daughter.
Kapoor's work has been mainly in the fields ofnuclear fission.[7] He studied heavy-ion fusion-fission dynamics,nuclear shell models and radiation detectors as well as particle accelerators and was associated with several accelerators including cyclotron facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,Universal Linear Accelerator, Darmstadt, BARC heavy-ion accelerator at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Tandem-Linac accelerator atLegnaro National Laboratories (INFN), during various periods of time.[2] His research assisted in widening the understanding of light-charged particles and large scale nuclear motion and his contributions are reported in the development of a new faster process for nuclear splitting.[8] His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles[note 2] and the article repository of Indian Academy of Sciences has listed 137 of them.[9] Besides, he has published a book,Nuclear Radiation Detectors,[10] which is now a prescribed text for academic studies in many institutions such asMaharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda,[11]Maharshi Dayanand University,[12]Savitribai Phule Pune University[13] andDeenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology.[14] He has also contributed chapters to books published by others[15] and his work has drawn citations from other scientists.[16][17][18]
Kapoor was the head of the Indian scientific delegation from BARC atPHENIX collaboration ofBrookhaven National Laboratory, which was the largest experiment which collected data atRelativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).[2] He led the team which established the BARC pelletron accelerator facility at TIFR in 1989 and the facility has since evolved into a prominent Indian base of heavy-ion research.[19] He was the coordinator of the committee which oversaw the development ofAccelerator-driven reactor systems in India. He was a member of the International Nuclear Data Committee (INDC) of theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1985 to 2000 and chaired the committee during 1994–97.[2] He is a founder member of the Asian Committee for Future Accelerator (ACFA)[20] and was involved in the evolution of the committee during its formative years.[21] He has been a member of the cost-review team ofInternational Linear Collider and sat in the phase II technical committee of Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) in 2004.[22] He presided the Indian Physics Association during 1997–99[23] and the physics section of the 81stIndian Science Congress held at Jaipur in 1994 and is a life member of the Indian Society for Radiation Physics.[24] A former member of the council of the Indian National Science Academy (1996–98), Kapoor has delivered several keynote or invited speeches which included the Founder's Day Address atBhabha Atomic Research Centre[25] and DAE- Raja Ramanna Lecture in Physics onFrontiers in nuclear fission, superheavy nuclei and nuclear energy atJawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, both in 2003.[26]
Kapoor was elected by theIndian Academy of Sciences as their fellow in 1974.[27] The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 1983.[28] He became an elected fellow of the remaining two major Indian science academies a decade apart, with Indian National Science Academy fellowship reaching him in 1984[29] followed by the fellowship of theNational Academy of Sciences, India in 1994.[30] He received the Goyal Prize ofKurukshetra University in 1996[31] and R. D. Birla Award in 2006.[4] He is also a fellow of theInstitute of Physics.[2]
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