Beloved husband, father, brother, colleague, and friend, Dr. Satyanarayan Nandi, passed away peacefully at home on September 14, on his 80th birthday, surrounded by his family and close friends. Dr. Nandi (known as Satya) was a Regents Professor Emeritus in the department of physics at Oklahoma State University where he retired in 2018 after 32 years.

Dr. Nandi was born in 1944 in Khamerberia, West Bengal, India, and was the first in his family to graduate high school. He left home at the age of 15 with a scholarship to Vidyasagar College in Kolkata. He ultimately received a Bachelors and Masters from Presidency College, changing his major from Chemistry to Physics. While there, he brought two of his younger sisters to the city, and raised them as if they were his own children. There he met his wife, Syamali, starting a 55-year marriage. They left India with 2 suitcases and $66 in 1970 to move to Chicago, where he obtained his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Chicago. From there they traveled the world with stints as a postdoctoral fellow and a research faculty member at the University of Bonn, West Germany, the Ohio State University, and the University of Texas, finally settling in Stillwater in 1986.

Dr. Nandi had a long list of outstanding academic achievements to his credit. He was an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. He brought the High Energy Physics program at OSU to international prominence with his efforts, which included establishing an experimental component with a strong presence at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland. Dr. Nandi was the founding director of the Oklahoma Center for High Energy Physics, which is a research consortium involving OSU, the University of Oklahoma, and Langston University. As a principal investigator, he was instrumental in obtaining over $12 million in external grants to build the center. During his career at OSU, Dr. Nandi supervised over twenty Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom went on to become successful scientists and professors. He was a recipient of several awards, including the Junior Faculty Excellence Award, the Regents Distinguished Research Award, and the Regents Professorship from OSU. Dr. Nandi is the author of 186 peer-reviewed research articles, many of which are highly cited in the literature on cutting-edge topics in high energy physics. He was a world expert on topics including collider phenomena, neutrino physics, grand unified theory, supersymmetry and extra dimensional theories. Dr. Nandi was featured frequently as an invited speaker at major physics conferences.

All of these remarkable accomplishments were driven by his determination to provide a better life for his family in the US and India, and Dr. Nandi is survived by his wife Syamali Nandi, his son Shaown Nandi and daughter in law Angela Kahn of New York City, and his son Shagoto Nandi of Cambridge, MA. He gave Shaown and Angela the most incredible gift by traveling to NY in May to attend their wedding. He also has seen three of his nephews pursue higher education in the US and India, and has been a constant champion of his extended family.

Perhaps most memorably, Dr. Nandi impacted the lives of many students. He was known to be an outstanding mentor and instructor. Dr. Nandi had the rare ability to connect his not only with post-docs, but also undergraduate physics students, who requested seats in his welcoming classroom. They especially appreciated the care and kindness he showed, his always-positive outlook, and his sense of humor, even while explaining difficult physics concepts. The Thanksgiving gatherings that he and his family routinely held at their house were highly popular, for which his previous students and associates would travel from far and away. All were welcome, especially those who were far from family and new to Stillwater. It's this creation of community both locally and globally that is Dr. Satya Nandi's legacy.
His smile was infectious, his incredible memory sharp until the end. His inspirational wisdom, friendship, optimism and cheerfulness will be greatly missed.

A memorial service and celebration of life will take place at 10:30am in the Starlight Terrace at the OSU Student Union in Stillwater, OK on September 28, 2024. In lieu of flowers the family requests considering a contribution to the Dr. Satya Nandi Endowed Graduate Fellowship in High Energy Physics Fund (Fund 22-00870) via the following web address: https://secure.osugiving.com/s/giving/annual?dsgt=22-00870