25 October 2024
With great sadness, we deeply mourn the passing of Prof Rohini Godbole. She passed away peacefully early this morning in her sleep. In addition to being a great scientist, she was a great leader, guide, colleague, and friend. She was a champion of women in science. She won many accolades and awards including the Padma Shri, Ordre national du MĂ©rite from France, memberships of various academies, and DLitt and DSc degrees from several institutes/universities. She also served on various advisory committees to governments in India and abroad.
Prof Godbole was born in 1952 in Pune. After graduating from the University of Pune, she did her MSc at IIT Bombay and received the institute silver medal. She completed her PhD from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1979. She was a visiting professor at various institutes and universities around the world, including the CERN theory department where she was a scientific associate. After serving on the faculty of the University of Bombay, she joined IISc in November 1995. She retired as a full professor from the Institute in July 2018 but continued her research activities at the Centre for High Energy Physics (CHEP) till date. During her tenure, she has guided over fourteen PhD students, three MPhil students, and five Master’s students. Her last student submitted their thesis this past August. Most of her students have been very successful and settled as faculty members in top institutes in India and abroad.
Prof Godbole was a pioneer of particle physics in India. While she has ventured into various sub-branches of the field, the main focus of her research remained collider physics, in particular top and Higgs physics. She was a champion for future colliders, in particular the ILC and its variants. She was widely consulted all over the world for her expertise in these areas. She led the scientific community in India in this direction through various programmes, schools, conferences, and networking activities. She has also done significant work in other areas such as supersymmetry.
Prof Godbole wrote and edited several books. Her book on supersymmetry with Manuel Drees and Probir Roy is famous and recommended by many universities and particle physics schools. In recent times, her interests have been in studying dark matter within the context of supersymmetric theories – one of her recent papers was published in Phys. Rev. Letts. She had several collaborators – most of them young – in India and abroad.
Prof Godbole was a champion and facilitator for women in science, playing a pivotal role in bringing their challenges to the forefront. She published two well-known popular books: “Lilavati’s Daughters” and “The Girl’s Guide to a Life in Science” with Prof Ram Ramaswamy. These books have inspired many young women. She was the founding Chair of the Women in Science panel of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and has put in place several programmes to increase the participation of women in science in India.
Prof Godbole’s contributions are immense, and she will be greatly missed not just by family and CHEP, but also by a large number of collaborators, friends, and people who were greatly inspired by her energy.
