Biography

I am an assistant research professor at the Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory at University of Arizona, as well as the project scientist of Aspera UV small-satellite mission. Before I started my current position, I was a postdoc at the Steward Observatory, worked with Prof. Erika Hamden. I did my Ph.D. at Seoul National University (SNU), Republic of Korea. I was also a research assistant/student fellow in the School of Physics at Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS). My Ph.D. advisors were Prof. Yong-Sun Park at SNU and Prof. Changbom Park at KIAS. I had worked with the instrumentation group (Head: Prof. A. N. Ramaprakash) at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, India during my Ph.D.

My research focus is on astronomical instrumentation and observational astronomy, in particular building UV/Optical telescope and instruments, and studying the circumgalactic medium and kinematics of galaxies.

Currently (as of December 2021), I am involved in and working on

• Aspera, a UV SmallSat space telescope for mapping the distribution of coronal gas at around nearby galaxy halos,
• Nox, a 12U UV CubeSat space telescope for mapping the all-sky EUV and FUV background
• FIREBall-2 UV balloon telescope, preparation for its second flight,
• Hyperion, a MIDEX-class high-resolution UV space telescope,
• A ground-based multi-object spectrograph, to survey the redshift of galaxies in the local universe.

Previously I was heavily involved in the development of optical multi-IFU spectrograph (DOTIFS) before, and I am still working on the development of its reduction software. I am also using SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU survey data to study environmental effects on galaxy kinematics.