I am pleased to announce that Dr. Puragra GuhaThakurta, Professor/Astronomer and Department Chair of Astronomy & Astrophysics, is the 2020-21 winner of the division’s Outstanding Faculty Award. This award is the division’s highest honor for faculty achievement, recognizing combined excellence in research, teaching, and service.
Raja has been a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz since 1994. He is an internationally recognized scholar and scientific leader, and during his time here has proven to be an exceptional teacher and an invaluable asset to the campus in innumerable ways.
Raja’s ground breaking research focuses on the formation and evolution of galaxies, effectively establishing a new field of astronomy affectionately known as galactic archeology. In 1996 Raja received the Hubble Fellowship at Princeton University, in 1997 he received the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and in 2001 he received the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Memorial Prize and Fellowship. This year Raja was named a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.
As might be expected given his accomplishments, Raja has provided high-level service to his discipline on national committees and panels over the last two decades. Closer to home, the University of California Observatories have benefited from his service to their mission supporting system-wide astronomical research for over two decades. Raja has served as Astronomy and Astrophysics department chair through much of the turbulence of the last two years, for which I am deeply grateful.
Lastly, Raja is a remarkable teacher and mentor. His graduate students regularly garner top postdoctoral positions and coveted faculty positions. His commitment to innovative and cutting-edge teaching methods has made him one of the most impactful teachers at UC Santa Cruz. He regularly teaches entry-level undergraduate classes for which he garners consistently outstanding evaluations. In 2009, Raja launched the Science Internship Program, a transformative 10-week program aimed at engaging high school students in research internships. That program has grown in mission and scope over the intervening years, and its success and impact on young scientists and the campus is testament to Raja’s vision and energy.
In closing, Raja GuhaThakurta is an extraordinary individual whose leadership, research, and devotion to teaching and service have made him an invaluable member of our campus and community. Please join me in congratulating Raja for his many accomplishments!
Sincerely,
Paul L. Koch
Dean, Physical and Biological Sciences
Distinguished Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences