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About

Viraj Karambelkar is an astrophysicist at the forefront of time-domain astronomy, specializing in the design and deployment of robotic telescopes for transient discovery. As a key architect of the Wide-Field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER), Karambelkar has helped build a dedicated 1-meter robotic facility at Palomar Observatory that is revolutionizing our ability to detect and characterize kilonovae—the explosive mergers of neutron stars that produce gravitational waves. His work on WINTER’s design, commissioning, and early performance (2020–2024) has enabled the first near-infrared searches for electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave events, including the rapid follow-up of S250206dm. Karambelkar also led the establishment of India’s first robotic eye for time-domain astrophysics, the GROWTH-India Telescope (GIT), a 70-cm facility operated by IIA and IIT Bombay. With over 80 citations across his most influential papers, his contributions are shaping the next generation of multi-messenger astronomy. By bridging infrared instrumentation with real-time transient follow-up, Karambelkar is opening a new window on the dynamic universe—from supernovae to the cosmic collisions that ripple spacetime itself.