Avinash Kumar

I am pursuing my PhD in the Search for Milli-Lenses (SMILE) group under the supervision of Dr Carolina Casadio. In my research I primarily work with the Very Long Baseline Interferometry(VLBI) datasets.

The different Dark Matter models predict different estimation on the number density of the Dark Matter halos in sub-galactic scales (\(10^{6} \sim 10^9 M_{☉}\)). Our research focuses on searching for the strong milli-lensing candidates corrosponding to compact supermassive objects in those mass ranges.

Based on my previous research experiences in Radio Astronomy and AGN, I have honed my skills in data analysis and handling large volumes of complex datasets. My pivotal experience that sparked an interest in radio and AGN research was through the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory in citizen science research. This opportunity provided me with foundational knowledge and practical skills. I continued to build upon this experience by taking on roles as a Junior Research Fellow for the University of California, Berkeley SETI-Amity project, where I worked on an automated pipeline, setisim, for the automatic calibration and imaging of uGMRT data. Before joining my PhD, I also briefly worked as a Senior Project Associate funded by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the ISRO-ARIES Collaboration on the Aditya-L1 Project (AL1SC).