Radha Balakrishnan is an Indian theoretical physicist. She is a retired professor at the

Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) (sometimes also referred to as ''Matscience'') is a research centre located in Chennai, India.R. Jagannathan, ''The Institute of Mathematical Sciences'', Resonance (January 1999) vol. 4, no. 1, pp. ...

, India. After her early work in condensed matter physics on quantum crystals, she switched fields to

nonlinear dynamics In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

and has published research papers on a variety of topics.

Education

Balakrishnan pursued her Physics Honours from

Delhi University Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

and finished her

M.Sc A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in 1965. She has a

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

from

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

where her thesis was one of the earliest studies of quantum crystals on the effects of ⁴He impurities in solid ³He.

Career

During the 1980s, when Balakrishnan returned to India, she worked at the Department of Theoretical Physics,

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

as a Research Associate. She joined

in 1987. She retired in the year 2004 and since that time, Balakrishnan is continuing her research as a CSIR Emeritus Scientist. Her current research is on

Nonlinear Dynamics In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

Solitons In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the mediu ...

and Applications in Physics, Connections to Classical Differential Geometry.

Personal life

Radha Balakrishnan is married to V. Balakrishnan who is an Indian theoretical physicist. Their two children,

Hari Balakrishnan Hari Balakrishnan is the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and the Co-founder and CTO at Cambridge Mobile Telematics. Early life and car ...

and Hamsa Balakrishnan, are both faculty members at MIT.

Awards & honours

From the 1990s, she had been studying the deep connections between nonlinearity and the differential geometry of curves and surfaces. Balakrishnan received the Tamil Nadu Scientists Award in the Physical Sciences (1999) for her work. She also received

INSA The Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) is a non-profit, nonpartisan 501(c)(6) professional organization based in Arlington Virginia for public and private sector members of the United States Intelligence Community. History ...

’s Professor Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture Award (2005) for original and pioneering contributions in

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Balakrishnan, Radha Indian women physicists 20th-century Indian physicists Scientists from Chennai Living people Delhi University alumni Brandeis University alumni Articles created or expanded during Women's History Month (India) - 2014 20th-century Indian women scientists 21st-century Indian physicists 21st-century Indian women scientists Women scientists from Tamil Nadu Year of birth missing (living people)