Bengaluru, Jan 22 (PTI) Professor Tarun Souradeep has assumed charge as the Director of the prestigious Raman Research Institute here, the institute authorities said. Prof Souradeep, who took charge as RRI director, was earlier a professor and the chair of the physics department at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, Naresh V S, administrative officer of RRI said in a statement. He got his PhD from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune and was a postdoctoral fellow at Kansas State University"s High Energy Physics Group and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, the statement said. It further said that Prof Souradeep"s area of expertise is Cosmology and Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy, areas in which he has made important contributions and succeeded in creating a strong, sustained Indian effort addressing issues at par with international research. The impact of the Indian team led by the scientist is widely recognized, both in the field of cosmology with frontline Cosmic Microwave Background experiments (CMB), and the emergent field of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, according to the statement. Prof Souradeep is the spokesperson (Science) for LIGO-India and Member Secretary of LIGO - India Scientific Management Board. Together with Prof Bala Iyer (then at RRI), he was one of lead proposers of the national mega-science LIGO-India project way back in 2011, the statement said. He is a recipient of various awards including DST Swarnajayanti Fellowship, Gruber Cosmology Prize 2016 and 2018 and the Special breakthrough Prize for 2016. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences, the statement read. PTI GMS GMS SS SS