Nikku Madhusudhan is a Professor of Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. He is credited with pioneering atmospheric retrieval methods for determining the atmospheric properties of exoplanets using spectroscopic observations with large telescopes, besides other important developments in the understanding of the atmospheres, interiors, formation conditions, and habitability of exoplanets. He is one of the most published and cited scientists in the field of exoplanetary science, with over 180 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including many seminal works.
Most recently, his work led to the identification of a new class of habitable planets, called hycean worlds, and to the first detections of carbon-bearing molecules in a possible hycean world using the James Webb Space Telescope.
He obtained his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by postdoctoral positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Yale University, in the USA, before joining the faculty at the University of Cambridge where he has remained since 2013. He is a recipient of several awards and honours including the Young Scientist Medal in Astrophysics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the MERAC Prize in Theoretical Astrophysics from the European Astronomical Society and the Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching at Cambridge.
