Rate My Professor Sukrit Ranjan

Sukrit Ranjan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Planetary Sciences and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, a position he has held since September 2022. He earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard University in 2017, completing a thesis titled 'The UV Environment For Prebiotic Chemistry' and obtaining a Certificate in Origin of Life studies. Ranjan received his S.B. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010, with minors in Astronomy and History. Prior to his faculty appointment, he served as a CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow in Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University from 2020 to 2022 and as a Simons Collaboration on the Origin of Life Postdoctoral Fellow in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT from 2017 to 2020. Earlier roles include Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research in 2021 and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in 2017.

Ranjan is a theorist and modeler specializing in astrobiology, photochemistry, prebiotic chemistry, early Earth environments, exoplanet atmospheres, and the origin of life. His work constrains prebiotic conditions on Earth to guide experimental studies and develops observational tests for detecting life on other worlds, including biosignature gases and photochemical models. He has received the AAS Rodger Doxsey Prize in 2017, NAI Early Career Scholarship in 2018, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship from 2010 to 2013, CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship, and SCOL Postdoctoral Fellowship. Key publications include 'Photochemical Runaway in Exoplanet Atmospheres: Implications for Biosignatures' (The Astrophysical Journal, 2022), 'UV Transmission in Natural Waters on Prebiotic Earth' (Astrobiology, 2022), 'Photochemistry of Anoxic Abiotic Habitable Planet Atmospheres' (The Astrophysical Journal, 2020), and recent JWST-TST DREAMS papers on TRAPPIST-1 e such as 'NIRSpec/PRISM Transmission Spectroscopy of the Habitable Zone Planet TRAPPIST-1 e' (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2025). His research has over 3700 citations on Google Scholar, supports NASA Exoplanets Research Program grants, and contributes to JWST observations of habitable zone exoplanets. Ranjan mentors students, co-founded the ComSciCon science communication workshop, and participates in outreach as an Astrobites author emeritus.