Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has an active research group in Astronomy and Astrophysics that is part of the Physics department. Currently this group has seven faculty members, working in different areas of astrophysics.

JAP

The IISc astrophysics group started in 1986. We also coordinate the Joint Astronomy Programme (JAP) – a programme for training PhD students in astrophysics, jointly run with several collaborating institutes within Bangalore:
Raman Research Institute (RRI)
Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
The Joint Astronomy Programme was established in 1982 before there was any astrophysics group in IISc. Earlier more institutes were part of this programme. The Physics Department of IISc is the host of this programme.  All students in the programme remain registered with IISc.

Opportunities

We take students to do PhD degree under the supervision of the faculty members at our group or at the institutes participating in JAP. See Student opportunities. Every year a few students are selected for this programme by a committee with members from different collaborating institutes. The selected students undergo course work for one year taught by faculty members from collaborating institutes.  After the successful completion of course work, a student has the freedom to join a research supervisor in any of the collaborating institutes.

The broad guidelines of running this programme are decided by a Policy Committee constituted by the Directors of the collaborating institutes. The regular activities of this programme are monitored by a Programme Coordination Committee (PCC), chaired by the Chairman of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Division IISc and having one representative from each institute. 

A look at the thesis titles of past JAP students  will show that students in this Programme have worked virtually in all important areas of modern theoretical and observational astrophysics.  The courses offered by JAP provide an all-round training in modern astrophysics and are taken also by many students who join the collaborating institutes directly.  The contribution of this programme to Indian astrophysics has been immense, by any standard of judgement. 

For information on how to apply for JAP, click here. Students wishing to apply for this Programme should indicate Astronomy and Astrophysics as one of their department preferences when filling up the application form for Research Programmes.

Anyone interested in a postdoctoral or a research internship position in our group can contact the individual faculty members.

At present this group is in a growth mode and is looking for bright young astrophysicists (both observers and theorists/simulators) to join our faculty. See Faculty positions.