Subir Banerjee

Subir Kumar Banerjee (19 February 1938, Jamshedpur) is an Indian-American geophysicist, known for research on rock magnetism, palaeomagnetism, and environmental magnetism.

Education and career Banerjee studied at the University of Calcutta with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1956 and at the Indian Institute of Technology with a master's degree in 1959. He received in 1963 his Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of Cambridge, where his supervisors were John C. Belshé and Edward Bullard. As a postdoc at the Mullard Research Laboratories in Redhill, Surrey, Banerjee did research on ferrite. At the University of Newcastle, he held an appointment as lecturer from 1966 to 1969 and worked under the supervision of Kurt Hoselitz (1916–2010) and Kenneth Creer (1925–2020). For the academic year 1967–1968 Banerjee was at the Ampex Corporation and at Stanford University. At Stanford he was mentored by Allan V. Cox. In 1974 he gained fame for the book The physical principles of rock magnetism, co-authored with Frank D. Stacey. In 1970s Banerjee investigated samples of lunar rocks. In 1976 he was appointed an adjunct professor in the University of Minnesota's Program of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. In 1990 he founded the University of Minnesota's Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM) and became its director.

Banerjee's research deals with magnetism of rocks with applications to paleomagnetism and geomagnetism. His research pertains to the remanent magnetization of magnetic oxides in rocks. He and his colleagues have collected paleomagnetic data from sediments in lakes and soils and applied this data to archaeological, paleoclimatic and environmental studies. He was involved in the development of rapid methods for the paleomagnetic study of soils and their use in stratigraphy and climate reconstruction dating as far back as the midpoint of the Middle Paleolithic. From 1986 to 1988 he served as president of the Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Section of the AGU. The AGU honored him in 2003 with the William Gilbert Award and in 2006 with the John Adam Fleming Medal. Banerjeee was awarded the Louis Néel Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2004.

Selected publications