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General Information

Full Name Avinash Kumar
Affiliation Institute of Astrophysics - Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (IA - FORTH)
Languages English, Hindi

Education

  • 2023 - Present
    PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics
    Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH ; University of Crete.
    • The primary goal of my research is to develop an automated pipeline utilising the new CASA software and study the nature of the Supermassive Compact Objects(SMCO).
    • Research supported by European Research Council (ERC)
  • 2018
    MSc Physics
    University of Allahabad, Allahabad
    • Specialization in Electronics
  • 2016
    BSc (Physics, Computer Application, Mathematics)
    University of Allahabad, Allahabad
    • Major in Physics and Computer Application(Voc.)

Research Experience

  • Sep 2022 - Jan 2023
    Senior Project Associate
    ARIES Nainital
    • Funded by ISRO
    • Work to help set up Aditya-L1 Support Cell(AL1SC)
    • Project is collaboration of ISRO and ARIES Nainital.
  • Nov 2021 - Sep 2022
    Junior Research Fellow
    U C Berkeley SETI - Amity Node
    • Funded by Breakthrough Listen Initiative
    • Built a semi-automatic pipeline for the SETI backend for the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) to utilise visibility data for imaging the source of interest.
    • GMRT observation time of 3 hours accepted under DDT proposal as Principal Investigator; Cycle 42;
  • Aug 2018 - Oct 2021
    Research Intern
    RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory India
  • May 2018 - July 2018
    Research Associate
    UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences(CEBS)
    • supported by CEBS

Outreach Activities/Talks

  • Jun 2024 - Jul 2024
    • Taught 4 lectures (online) as an expert; Advanced Python programming for the second boot camp 2024 by Nehru Planetarium Delhi
  • Nov 2023
    • Taught 2 lectures on Introduction to Numpy, data processing
    • “Introduction to Python for Undergrads 2023-24”; The sessions were aimed at the University of Crete Undergraduate students in the Department of Physics, University of Crete, Greece
  • Nov 2022 - Apr 2023
    • Taught 4 lectures (online) as an expert in advanced Python programming, for the Jantar Mantar Positional Astronomy Observations(JMPAO), Nehru Planetarium Delhi
  • 2022

Academic Interests

Open Source Projects

  • 2024-Present
    vasco
    • VLBI and SMILE source based CASA Optimizations (VASCO) - not released for public use yet
  • 2024-Present
    alfrd
    • Automated Logical FRamework for Dynamic script execution(ALFRD)
  • 2022-2023
    scoobi
    • Solar Conventionality-based Organizing Observation data ( SCOOBI ) for ARIES Nainital
  • 2021-present
    setisim
    • SETI synthesis imaging
  • 2021-2022
    turbo_seti
    • turboSETI -- python based SETI search algorithm.
  • 2021-present
    rgbmaker
    • A python package which communicates to different astronomical services and fetches fits and numerical data.

Other Interests

  • Hobbies: Reading, Hiking, Running etc.