Curriculum Vitae

"Only when it’s dark enough can you see the stars." - A nice statement lost on Radio Astronomers.

Education

Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi (India)
Integrated Dual Degree (B.Tech. + M.Tech.) in Engineering Physics (Aug. 2014 - May. 2019)

CGPA - 8.75/10. Departmental Rank 2 Holder.
TOEFL iBTS Score - 109/120 (obtained above 25 in each section).
Awarded with IIT Color, the second highest honor of IITs for contributing to the growth of astronomy in the institute and outreach.

Skills

General Programming - C, Python, Matlab, FORTRAN.
Simulation and Science - AIPS, CASA, DS9, Astropy, Scipy, APLpy, LaTeX.
Amateur Astronomy - Telescope fabrication and handling, Night-sky observations, Long exposure astrophotography.
Miscellaneous - Full Stack Web and App Development, Git, Heroku, Jekyll, SQL, Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, AfterEffects.

Courses and Academic Background

Background - Synthesis Imaging in Radio Interferometry, Introduction to AGN by Peterson, First Course in General Relativity.
Coursework - Classical & Quantum Mechanics, Computational Physics, Statistical Physics, Nuclear & Particle Physics, Linear Algebra, Numerical Methods, Relativistic Electrodynamics, Magnetohydrodynamics, Basic Astronomy, Solar Physics.
Other Courses - Probability and Statistics, Statistical simulations, Programming and Data-structures.

Experience

Go to Research Interests

Looking from All Angles at a Source Straddling the Radio-loud/Radio-quiet AGN Divide.
VSRP Summer Internship Under Dr. Preeti Kharb, National Center For Radio Astrophysics (NCRA-TIFR).
Pune, India. (May. 2018 - July. 2018)

Imaged and analyzed archival data of the unique AGN -- NGC 2329, at all available radio bands, resolutions and sensitivities.
Studied the hybrid morphology, spectral indices, and calculated age estimates to investigate a possible AGN restart.
Used AIPS, CASA, Python, and DS9 for calibration, imaging, and analysis of radio, X-ray, and optical data.
Submitted a first-author paper titled 'The Peculiar WAT NGC 2329 with Seyfert/FRI-like Radio Lobes' to MNRAS.

Importance of Polarization Calibration in Radio Interferometry.
Master’s Project Under Dr. Prasun Dutta, IIT (BHU), Varanasi.
Varanasi, India. (Jan. 2017 - May. 2019)

Aims to provide valuable insight into the power spectrum estimation methods and to construct the reionization signal from the observed data.
Calibration and imaging using CASA. Used the software VISFITS for visibility simulation and modified it for the addition of antenna gains.
Published a paper in IEEE URSI Regional Conference Proceedings. Poster presented at MMetre Wavelength Sky II (MWSKY II) Conference.

Understanding Stellar Collapse and Formation of Strange Quark Stars.
Summer Internship Under Prof. Ming Chung Chu, Chinese University Of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong SAR. (Jun. 2017 - Aug. 2017)

Hydrodynamic simulations aimed at understanding stellar collapse and investigating the conditions that lead to formation of Strange Quark Stars, and their attributes and Gravitational Wave signatures.
Used high-resolution Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) simulations to simulate the collapse of the supernova gas in FORTRAN.

Star cluster detection and characterization using generalized Parzen density estimation.
Summer Internship Under Dr. Sarita Vig, Indian Institute Of Space Science And Technology (IIST) And Dr. Gorthi RKSS Manyam, IIT Tirupati.
Thiruvananthapuram, India. (May. 2016 - July. 2016)

Involved the application of generalized Parzen Windows for star cluster detection and identification.
Wrote a MATLAB pipeline for semi-automatic detection of star cluster in a given field of stars.
Presented a paper on the same at conference ”Star and Planet Formation : Insights and Intricacies” at IIST Thiruvananthapuram. Paper accepted for publication in MNRAS, Oct 2018.

Teaching Assistant Positions

2019 - PHY 304 - Computational Physics (Theory and Lab)
2018 - PHY 303 - Electromagnetic Waves
2017 - PHY 304 - Solar, Space & Plasma Physics
2017 - PHY 303 - Electromagnetic Waves
2016 - PHY 102 - Physics II (Electromagnetism)

Publications

Go to Publications

2020 - (Conference Proceedings) J. Kumar, P. Dutta, S. Das, N. Roy, ”Instrumental Calibration for Observations of Redshifted 21-cm Signal from Neutral Hydrogen”. URSI-RCRS 2020, IEEE, 11 June 2020.
2018 - S. Nambiar, S. Das, S. Vig, G.R.K.S.S. Manyam, ”Star cluster detection and characterization using generalized Parzen density estimation”, MNRAS, accepted for publication, Oct. 17, 2018.

(Under Preparation for submission to MNRAS) - S. Das, P. Kharb, S. Nandi, R. Morganti, ”The Peculiar Wide-Angle-Tailed Galaxy NGC 2329 with an FRI-Seyfert Radio Outflow”.

Conferences

2019 - Presented a poster on ”Instrumental calibration requirements for observation of redshifted 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen” at the Metre Wavelength Sky II Conference (MYSKY-II) held at National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune, India
2016 - Presented a paper on ”Star cluster detection using Parzen Window” at the Star and Planet Formation Conference (SPF2016) held at Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India

Achievements, Awards and Extra-curricular activities

2017 - Winner, Codefest Appathon - Android Development Competition, Dept. of CSE, IIT (BHU) Varanasi.
2016 - Founder, Corona - Bi-monthly collegiate astronomy magazine.
2016 - Secretary, Astronomy Club, IIT (BHU) Varanasi.
2016 - Winner, Hackathon - Android Development Contest, Technex, IIT (BHU) Varanasi.
2015 - Global Rank 81, Open Contest ”The Pythonist” hosted on hackerrank.com.
2015 - Winner, Eyes on the Sky - a messier hunting competition, LNMIIT, Jaipur, India.