Designation: Scientist-G & Director-in-charge
Research Area: Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Personal webpage (Maintained by individual)

Dr. Kumar (b.1970) graduated from Purvanchal University, Jaunpur in 1990 with Physics and Mathematics as major subjects; and holds a Master of Science Degree in Physics from IIT, Kanpur. He joined ARIES as a senior research fellow in 1997, and afterwards obtained a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics from Kumaun University, Nainital in 2004. He carried out his doctoral research on "Spectrophotometric Studies of Star Clusters". Continuing as a faculty at ARIES since 1999, he gained extensive experience in optical observations of celestial sources, their data analysis and interpretation of results in astrophysical terms. He also spent a year on sabbatical in 2007 as post-doctoral researcher at Astronomy Department of University of Concepcion, Chile.

As a principal scientist, he was involved in all phases of the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope Project during 2006 to 2016 and thereafter worked as astronomer in-charge for DOT until ealry 2024. He has experience of over two decades in operations and science utilization of one to four meter class optical telescopes. As part of observatory program, he has worked on diverse topics such as study of comets, Post-AGB stars, Counterparts of X-ray Binaries and Gamma Ray Bursts. He has guided four PhD students and provided guiding assistance to another five PhD students. He has supervised more than two dozen graduate students for short term periods.

• Studies of highly energetic cosmic explosions
• Formation and evolution of stars and galaxies
• Optical facility development and related instrumentation

• The 3.6 meter Devasthal Optical Telescope : From inception to realisation 
• 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope Project: Completion and first results
• Distance Determination to Eight Galaxies Using Expanding Photosphere Method
• SN 2008in - bridging the gap between faint and normal supernovae of type IIP
• Sky transparency over Naini Tal : A retrospective study 

• Astrophysics Data System
• Google Scholar