Indian Named in Time’s Most Influential List: Priyamvada Natarajan Thought It Was Spam Mail

Astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan has been named in TIME’s ‘100 Most Influential People of 2024’ list. She expressed her initial disbelief when she first found out about the honor, stating that she thought it was “spam mail” due to her scientific background. Natarajan, who appeared on the list alongside other influential figures such as World Bank President Ajay Banga, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, actor Alia Bhatt, and Olympian wrestler Sakshi Malik, recounted her childhood fascination with maps and her bookish tendencies while growing up in Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

At present, Natarajan is a Professor of Astronomy and Professor of Physics at Yale University, with a research focus on cosmology, gravitational lensing, and black hole physics. She emphasized the difficulty in directly observing and studying entities such as dark matter, dark energy, and black holes, which necessitates inferring their presence from their gravitational effects. Additionally, she noted the advancements in space data collection over the past decade.

Natarajan recounted her decision to leave India in the late 1980s to pursue research opportunities abroad, citing the lack of full scholarships and limited undergraduate research possibilities at the time. She underscored her early involvement in research at the Nehru Planetarium in Delhi during high school, highlighting her passion for scientific inquiry from a young age. Offering words of encouragement to women in the workforce, Natarajan urged them to persist despite the challenges they may face, drawing from her own experiences as a successful astrophysicist.