Dr. Krishna Rajagopal

Professor

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Biography

Professor Krishna Rajagopal is the William M. Burden Professor of Physics at MIT, focusing on Astrophysics and the properties of quark-gluon plasma. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1993. After a year as a Junior Fellow at Harvard, he joined Caltech and then MIT in 1997, where he later became the Associate Head of the Department of Physics in 2009. Rajagopal has served as Chair of the MIT faculty from 2015 to 2017 and as Dean of Digital Learning from 2017 to 2021. His research integrates insights from particle nuclear physics, astrophysics, and condensed matter physics, aiming to understand the dynamics of quark-gluon plasma and the phases of matter arising from Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). He has analyzed the critical points of the QCD phase diagram and worked on experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His contributions have implications for both high-energy physics and astrophysics, particularly in the context of neutron stars and their mergers.

Research Interests

Experience

William M. Burden Professor

— Present

Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Cambridge, MA

Leading research in Astrophysics related to the properties of quark-gluon plasma and QCD.

Awards

#2025

Arthur C. Smith Award

#2023

Buechner Award for Undergraduate Advising

#2017

Outstanding UROP Faculty Mentor Award

#2011

Everett Moore Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

#2010

Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow

#2004

American Physical Society Fellow

#1999

Buechner Prize for Excellence in Teaching

#1998

Sloan Research Fellowship