A. P. Balachandran

Who is A. P. Balachandran?

Aiyalam Parameswaran Balachandran is an Indian theoretical physicist well known for his extensive contributions to the role of classical topology in quantum physics. He has been the Joel Dorman Steele Professor of Physics in Syracuse University since 2000. He has also been a Fellow of the American Physical Society and awarded a prize by the U.S. Chapter of the Indian Physics Association in recognition of his outstanding scientific contributions. In 1990, Syracuse University honored him with a Chancellor's Citation for Exceptional Academic Achievement, and in 1991 he was qualified for the university's William Wasserstrom Prize for Outstanding Graduate Teaching.

Prof. Balachandran's key scientific works to date include the revival of the Skyrme model which successfully describes baryons as topological solitons of meson fields and extensive applications and popularisation of mathematical concepts such as homotopy groups and fibre bundles to problems in quantum physics. Lately Prof. Balachandran's research has been focused on the formulation of quantum field theories on noncommutative spacetimes and investigating the emergent significance of Hopf algebras in quantum physics as generalisations of symmetry groups.