Madappa Prakash (born December 28, 1953, in

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

) is an Indian-American nuclear physicist and astrophysicist, known for his research on the physics of

neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...

s and heavy-ion collisions.

Education and career

Prakash grew up in Mysore. At the

University of Mysore The University of Mysore is a public state university in Mysore, Karnataka, India. The university was founded during the reign of Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV and the premiership of Sir M. Visvesvaraya. The university is recognised by t ...

he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a master's degree in 1973. At the

University of Bombay University of Mumbai is a public university, public List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, state university in Mumbai. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, largest univ ...

(now the University of Mumbai), he received his PhD in 1979 with a dissertation on nuclear fission. From 1974 to 1981, he held a position as a scientific officer at the

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is India's premier nuclear research facility, headquartered in Trombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by Homi Jehangir Bhabha as the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) in January 1954 ...

. As a postdoc, he was from 1979 to 1981 on leave of absence for study and research at Copenhagen's

Niels Bohr Institute The Niels Bohr Institute () is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and biophysics. Overview The institute was foun ...

. At the

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

he taught and did research from 1982 to 2005 and collaborated extensively with

James Lattimer James Michael Lattimer (born 12 April 1950 in Marion, Indiana) is a nuclear astrophysicist who works on the dense nuclear matter equation of state and neutron stars. He is currently a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University. Career La ...

. From 2005 to the present, Prakash is a professor at

Ohio University Ohio University (Ohio or OU) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Athens, Ohio, United States. The university was first conceived in the 1787 contract between the United States Department of the Treasury#Re ...

. In 2020 he and another Ohio University professor became participants in the Network for Neutrinos, Nuclear Astrophysics, and Symmetries (N3AS) Physics Frontier Center, with headquarters at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Prakash's research deals with neutron stars and with atomic nuclei and nuclear matter under extreme conditions of density, temperature, and magnetic fields. In 2022, he won the Hans A. Bethe Prize, the most prestigious prize in the field of nuclear astrophysics, for his research about neutron stars and black holes. In 2001 Prakash was elected a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

for "fundamental research into the properties of hot and dense matter, providing a basis for understanding relativistic heavy ion collisions and the structure and composition of neutron stars." (search on year=2001 and institution=SUNY at Stony Brook) In 2022 he received the

Hans A. Bethe Prize The Hans A. Bethe Prize, is presented annually by the American Physical Society. The prize honors outstanding work in theory, experiment or observation in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields ...

with citation:

Selected publications

* * * (over 850 citations) * * * (over 1700 citations) * (over 1500 citations) * * (over 1000 citations) * (over 1550 citations) * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prakash, Madappa 1953 births Living people 20th-century Indian physicists 21st-century Indian physicists 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists Indian nuclear physicists American nuclear physicists Indian astrophysicists American astrophysicists University of Mysore alumni University of Mumbai alumni Stony Brook University faculty Ohio University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Scientists from Mysore