Romesh Kumar Kaul obtained his BSc (Hons) in Physics and MSc degrees from Delhi University, followed by PhD (1976) from the same university under the supervision of Ashoke Nath Mitra. He was a post-doctoral Fellow at TIFR, Mumbai and at the Centre for Particle Theory, University of Texas, Austin. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Frei University of Berlin (1978-80) and has also been an Associate at CERN, Geneva (1983-84). He was on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore at its Centre for Theoretical Sciences (1980-92), when he shifted to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai where he has been on the faculty since then.

Academic and Research Achievements: Kaul's research activities have spanned a variety of areas in quantum field theory, high-energy physics and gravity. These include his celebrated work on supersymmetric solution of the Gauge Hierarchy Problem (equivalently what is called 'naturalness problem') of the standard model of particle physics, which is a major motivation for studying supersymmetry as a fundamental symmetry of nature for physics beyond the standard model. He has explored the area of topological quantum field theories to study the mathematical problems in low dimensional manifolds such as knots and links in three dimensions. He has mentored many students at IISc, Bangalore and at IMSC, Chennai.