D. J. Saikia

Dhruba J. Saikia FNAsc is an Indian astrophysicist and radio astronomer, with a keen interest in education, especially higher education.

He was a professor at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) where he worked for over 40 years and is now at the IUCAA where he heads the Teaching Learning Centre and the National Resource Centre, which constitute the Astronomy Centre for Educators (ACE).

Besides TIFR and IUCAA, he has been engaged in research and/or teaching at the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester, National Radio Astronomy Observatory USA, Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science division, Australia, the University of Western Australia, Savitribai Phule Pune University and Cotton University, India.

Saikia's research interests are in the fields of extragalactic astronomy, radio astronomy and more recently education.

Along with Vijay Kapahi, he contributed to the early development of the unification scheme for AGN, and has been invited to review areas where he has made significant contributions.

These include reviews titled Polarization properties of extragalactic radio sources with C. J. Salter, Compact steep-spectrum and peaked-spectrum radio sources with Christopher P. O'Dea, Jets in radio galaxies and quasars: an observational perspective, and Decoding the giant extragalactic radio sources with Pratik Dabhade and Mousumi Mahato.

He has recently contributed a Chapter to the Indian Higher Education Report 2023 titled Institutional research in higher education: learning from an experiment at Cotton University.

Dhruba J. Saikia was the founding Vice-Chancellor of Cotton University in Guwahati when the historic Cotton College, founded in 1901, was converted to a university in 2012.

Dhruba Saikia was born on 21 January 1956 in Jorhat, Assam, which was the home of both

his parents.

He spent his early childhood and schooling years in the

town of Shillong, Meghalaya.

Both his parents were teachers.

His mother Devika Saikia taught

Assamese literature at Sankardev College, Shillong, while his father Debendra Nath Saikia

taught Commercial geography at St. Anthony's College, Shillong.

Dhruba Saikia studied in St. Edmund's School from 1961 to 1971, passing the Indian School Certificate Examination

conducted by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate in 1971.

After completing his school education in Shillong, Saikia, a National Science Talent Scholarship

recipient, joined Hindu College, Delhi in 1972.

He received his B.Sc.

with Physics honours from

Delhi University in 1975, and then joined Gwyer Hall for his postgraduate studies.

He received his M.Sc.

in physics from Delhi University in 1977, and soon took up a regular

position in the Radio Astronomy Group of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and

joined at Ooty on 16 August 1977.

It was an exciting time for the group.

The Ooty Radio

Telescope, built indigenously by a very young group led by Govind Swarup had produced many

interesting results and provided additional evidence in support of the Big Bang model of the Universe just a couple of years earlier.

After spending two years at Ooty, he shifted to the TIFR Centre in the campus of the Indian

Institute of Science, Bengaluru, where he did most of his Ph.D. work, completing his thesis in 1985

under the guidance of Vijay Kapahi and Govind Swarup.

The degree was awarded by the University

He was the Dean of, the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Faculty during 2007–2009, and a member of the statutory bodies of a number of institutions for varying periods.

He was a member of the Senate of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Academic Council of Tezpur University, Management Board for Centre of Plasma Physics - Institute for Plasma Research, Governing Board of Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development, Governing Board of IIIT Guwahati, Governing Board and Academic Council of Assam Don Bosco University and Academic Council, TIFR Deemed University.

He was the Executive President of the Physics Academy of North East (PANE) from 2017 to 2019.

Saikia is also a wildlife enthusiast, especially of birds, and contributes regularly to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology portal ebird.org.

He was awarded the Adventurous eBirder of the Year in 2019 by Bird Count India.