Sarbani Basu

Sarbani Basu is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Astronomy at Yale University and Chair of its Department of Astronomy since 2016. She is an internationally renowned astrophysicist specializing in helioseismology and asteroseismology - the study of stellar interiors through oscillations. In 2022, she served as a Klaus Tschira Guest Professor at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), collaborating with the Theory and Observations of Stars (TOS) group on stellar interior structure and rotation.

• Education: B.Sc. (1986) from University of Madras, M.Sc. from Savitribai Phule Pune University, Ph.D. (1993) from University of Mumbai via Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
• Leadership Roles: Chair of Yale's Department of Astronomy (2016-present), Vice-Chair of AURA (2018-2021), Board Member of TESS Asteroseismic Science Consortium

Her research focuses on probing stellar interiors through oscillations, with major contributions to solar structure characterization, helium abundance studies, and developing asteroseismic analysis techniques. She has led significant collaborations analyzing data from NASA missions like Kepler, TESS, and Solar Dynamics Observatory. Her work combines theoretical modeling with observational data from networks like GONG and instruments like HMI.

Scientific honors include:

• Vainu Bappu Gold Medal (1996)
• NSF CAREER Grant (2004)
• AAAS Fellow (2015)
• George Ellery Hale Prize (2018)
• GOPIO Global Achievement Award (2018)

She has authored numerous publications and co-written the authoritative text Asteroseismic Data Analysis (2019), which provides comprehensive technical guidance for studying solar-like oscillations in cool stars. Her recent work continues to advance inversion techniques and explore fundamental questions about stellar evolution and internal dynamics.