Annapurni Subramaniam

Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam is an astronomer and currently serves as the director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. She is also the first woman astronomer to head the institute. She works on areas like star clusters, stellar evolution and population in galaxies and Magellanic clouds.

Education and early life Subramaniam finished her schooling from Victoria College, Palakkad, in science.

Career Subramaniam was a research fellow at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics from 1990 to 1996. She then became a postdoctoral fellow in 1998 at the institute and currently works as a professor and director of institute. She leads a research group that explores various stellar populations to study the structure, evolution and chemical enrichment of Magellanic Clouds. Subramaniam was also heavily involved with AstroSat, the first multi-wavelength space telescope mission from the Indian Space Research Organisation, where she served as the calibration scientist for the UV imaging telescope. Galactic structure Magellanic Clouds Stellar population Asian Scientist 100 (2025) COSPAR vikram Sarabhai medal (2026)