Personal Overview

After completing my undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay), I moved to the USA and obtained my Ph.D. in Physics at The University of Texas at Austin. Afterwards, I undertook postdoctoral research at Princeton University, and had postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences - and an Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Mathematics and Systems Engineering - at the Florida Institute of Technology.

My research interests are situated primarily within the transdisciplinary area of astrobiology. As a theorist, my research is mostly oriented towards modeling (i.e., both pen-and-paper calculations and numerical simulations) the following areas:

1. Laws of Living Systems: uncovering the (bio)chemical and (bio)physical processes that shape (extra)terrestrial life in diverse environments

2. Habitability: understanding how stellar processes (e.g., electromagnetic radiation, winds, space weather), planetary factors (e.g., magnetic fields, tidal forces, oceans), and high-energy astrophysical phenomena in the Milky Way (e.g., active supermassive black holes) regulate the potential for life.
3. Biosignatures and Technosignatures: identifying possible biosignatures (e.g., microfossils) and technosignatures (e.g., chlorofluorocarbons) and assessing their detectability.
4. Space Exploration: designing life-detection missions to targets in the solar system (e.g., Venus, Europa, Enceladus, Planet 9) and beyond (e.g., interstellar objects and free-floating planets) using conventional (e.g., chemical rockets) and novel (e.g., light sails) propulsion systems.

As my Ph.D. and initial postdoctoral research was in plasma physics, I continue to work sporadically in this field. Areas that I have investigated over the past several years include Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations for plasma models, fluid models that accurately encapsulate collisional effects, generation of small- and large-scale magnetic fields, magnetic turbulence (e.g., in the solar wind), and fast magnetic reconnection believed to drive explosive phenomena such as stellar/solar flares.

Finally, I have dabbled in a few other areas such as energetic constraints on early human evolution; deep learning applications to astrodynamics; electronic structure calculations of photosynthetic pigments; and the history and philosophy of science.