Tribute to Prof Deepak Kar

NITheCS notes with deep sadness the passing of our Associate, Prof Deepak Kar (University of the Witwatersrand), on 21 December 2025 following a short illness.

Prof Kar was born in 1979 in Maryland, USA, and spent his childhood in India. He later returned to the USA, where he obtained his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Physics at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Following his doctorate, he held postdoctoral research positions at the Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics (IKTP), TU Dresden, Germany (2009–2012), and at the University of Glasgow, UK (2012–2015).

Prof Kar joined the School of Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2015 as a Lecturer. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2016, Associate Professor in 2019, and Full Professor in 2025. He delivered his inaugural lecture, “Novel dark matter searches at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN”, in July 2025.

An outstanding experimental particle physicist, Prof Kar held an NRF B2 rating in recognition of his international standing. His research contributions were extensive, with over 1,300 publications and several hundred thousand citations, reflecting his central role in the ATLAS collaboration at CERN. His expertise spanned quantum chromodynamics, Monte Carlo event generators, and searches for new physics in novel final states. He was widely recognised as a pioneer in the study of strongly interacting dark sector models of dark matter. He also authored the textbook Experimental Particle Physics: Understanding the measurements and searches at the Large Hadron Collider, which has been downloaded more than 2,000 times.

Prof Kar was deeply committed to postgraduate education and mentorship. He supervised numerous MSc and PhD students to completion and hosted several postdoctoral fellows. He took great pride in his students’ achievements, including the awarding of prestigious bursaries and recognition at national and international conferences. Most recently, one of his MSc students was selected for the highly competitive CERN Summer Programme, which accepts only 200 students from more than 6,000 applicants worldwide.

He was highly successful in attracting research funding and honours. In 2024, he was awarded the prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship, which he utilised during a productive sabbatical at the University of Glasgow. Prof Kar served on several national and international committees, most notably as a dedicated member of the Council of the South African Institute of Physics (2023–2025), where he contributed to the Standards and Awards portfolio. In addition to being a NITheCS Associate, he was a member of the Institute of Physics, and a former member of the American Physical Society. His service to the scientific community also included reviewing for journals, assessing grant applications, examining theses, evaluating postgraduate competitions, and participating in outreach and engagement activities.

Beyond academia, Prof Kar was an avid explorer of cultures, cuisines, and historic sites, having travelled to more than 130 countries worldwide. His lifelong ambition was to experience every part of the globe. He most recently travelled to Afghanistan and later to Libya, where he contracted malaria before passing away in India.

We extend our sincere condolences to Prof Kar’s family, friends, colleagues, and students.