Kundu, Mukul Ranjan, 1930-2010

Mukul Ranjan Kundu (born 10 February 1930 in Kolkata, India) was a solar physicist and professor. He received his BSc in physics and his MSc in radio physics and electronics from the University of Kolkata in 1949 and 1951, respectively. He studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and earned his PhD from the Sorbonne (University of Paris) in 1957. He began teaching at the University of Michigan in 1959 before joining Cornell University as an associate professor in 1962. From 1965-1968, he taught at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. In 1968, he joined the University of Maryland as a full professor, where he remained until his death on 16 June 2010.

Kundu specialized in radio observations of the Sun, helping to establish the relationship between the Sun's 10.7 cm radio flux and the levels of ionization in Earth's ionosphere (the flux is now used as a standard proxy for the level of magnetic activity on the Sun). He was known for the textbook Solar Radio Astronomy, published by Wiley in 1965. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society, and was awarded the Humboldt Prize and the George Ellery Hale Prize.