Rate My Professor Varsha Kulkarni

Varsha Kulkarni is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of South Carolina. She earned a B.Tech. in Engineering Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, an M.S. in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1990, and a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1996, both from the University of Chicago. Following her doctorate, she was a NICMOS Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona from 1996 to 1999 and an Assistant Professor at Clemson University from 1999 to 2000. She joined the University of South Carolina in 2000 as Assistant Professor, advanced to Associate Professor in 2005, and became Professor in 2010. She served as Interim Department Chair from 2012 to 2013.

Dr. Kulkarni's research specializes in extragalactic astrophysics, particularly the diffuse gaseous matter in and around galaxies, dust grains in nearby and distant galaxies, evolution of dust on cosmic timescales, and implications for galaxy chemical evolution and cosmology. Her group performs observations with optical, infrared, and ultraviolet instruments on telescopes including Gemini, Keck, Very Large Telescope, Magellan, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and James Webb Space Telescope. She has authored approximately 160 refereed papers, review articles, conference proceedings, and abstracts. Key publications include “Early metal enrichment of gas-rich galaxies at z ∼ 5” (Poudel et al., 2018, MNRAS), “Probing the Interstellar Dust in Galaxies over > 10 Gyr of Cosmic History” (Kulkarni et al., 2016, Planetary & Space Sci.), “Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Sub-damped Ly-α Absorbers at z< 0.5” (Som et al., 2015, ApJ), and “The Role of Sub-DLA Absorbers in the Cosmic Evolution of Metals” (Kulkarni et al., 2007, ApJ). Her work has garnered over 3,500 citations and has been supported by continuous NSF and NASA funding since 2002, with 27 grants as principal investigator. She received the Breakthrough Leadership in Research Award from the University of South Carolina in 2019. Dr. Kulkarni founded the annual Meeting of Astronomers in South Carolina, served as President of the Southern Atlantic Coast Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (2012-2013), has given over 200 research talks internationally, supervised dozens of students, and contributed to public outreach including 2017 solar eclipse events.