In Memoriam: A. Surjalal Sharma
The European Geosciences Union shared the passing of Prof. A. Surjalal "Surja" Sharma:
We regret to announce that Prof. A. Surjalal Sharma passed away on 5 January 2024. He was a long-serving and dedicated editor of Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics. He was particularly keen to maintain this partnership between the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU), as he had previously done as Chair of the AGU Nonlinear Geophysics section. Prof. A. Surjalal Sharma worked as space physicist for 41 years at the University of Maryland and was internationally recognised, notably for his pioneering work on complexity and self-organised criticality in plasma physics and on space weather prediction. His human qualities were also universally appreciated, particularly as an organiser and leader. He has received numerous awards, including the AGU Lorenz Lecture and fellowships from the Indian Geophysical Union and the American Physical Society. Prof. A. Surjalal Sharma will be greatly missed by the nonlinear geophysics community, and we extend our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
A pioneer in the prediction of space weather, Surja was awarded many honors and prizes, including the Lorenz Prize, the top AGU prize for nonlinear geophysics. He was Associate Director of PHaSER and of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute.
Surja was a key member of our space physics group for more than 45 years, joining our department in 1987. In 2011, he was the inaugural winner of our college's Distinguished Research Scientist Prize. In addition to his research, he frequently taught our undergraduate courses, and was .a superb mentor to many of our students and local high school students, winning our department Mentoring award the first year it was offered.
Those of us who had the good fortune to interact with Surja know that he was unfailingly kind and thoughtful, and will be greatly missed.
More on Surja and his distinguished career is available in this tribute.
