Prof. Kulkarni's primary interests are the study of compact objects (neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts) and the study of the dynamic optical sky (supernovae). He is the Director of the Caltech Optical Observatories which includes Palomar and the Keck Observatories. He has been awarded the Alan T. Waterman Prize of the NSF, a fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a Presidential Young Investigator award from the NSF, the Helen B. Warner award of the American Astronomical Society, and the Jansky Prize of Associated Universities, Inc. Prof. Kulkarni was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994), Fellow of the Royal Society of London (2001) and Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (2003). In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from the Radboud University of Nijmegen (Netherlands).