Khagol issue_116

Welcome to . . . Sheelu Abraham, who has joined as a Research Associate at IUCAA in September 2018. She obtained her Bachelors' (2004), Masters' (2006) and PhD (2015) degrees in Physics, all from St. Thomas College, Kozhencherri, which has been affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the data analysis from large-scale sky surveys using Machine Learning tools. Her current research interests are in gravitational waves and galaxy morphology studies, especially with the application of Machine Learning tools. Earlier, she was working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in IUCAAduring 2015 - 2018. Md. Shah Alam, who has joined IUCAA as a Post- Doctoral Fellow in August 2018. He obtained BSc (2007), and MSc (2009) degrees in Physics fromAligarh Muslim University, and did PhD research work from the Centre for Theoretical Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. During PhD, he worked on observational study of black hole X-ray binary systems with space-based X-ray astronomy satellites like XMM-Newton, RXTE, and Suzaku. He has studied the effect of strong gravity of stellar-mass black hole on its surrounding structures like accretion disk and corona. Currently, he has been working on the study of clumpy nature of absorber between the black hole and companion star in high mass X-ray binary systems using XMM-Newton and AstroSat data. Earlier, he was working as a Post- Doctoral Fellow in IUCAA (under AstroSat project) during 2016- 2018. Abhijit B. Bendre, who has done his Bachelors' (2008) and Masters' (2010) degrees in Physics, both from Savitribai Phule Pune University. He obtained his PhD degree from Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany, in 2018, during which, he worked on the simulations of ISM to understand the emergence, and geometry of large scale magnetic fields hosted by the galaxies, where he tried to explore the reaction of cosmic rays and large scale magnetic field on the growth of galactic magnetic fields. He joined IUCAA in September 2018 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. His current research involves the investigation of turbulent transport coefficients in galactic ISM. Savithri H. Ezhikode, who has joined IUCAAas a Post- Doctoral Fellow in August 2018. She obtained her Bachelor's (2009) degree in Physics from the University of Calicut, Kozhikode, andMSc (2011) andMPhil (2012) degrees in Physics, both from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. She did her PhD (2018) at St. Thomas College, Kozhencherri affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University. Her PhD thesis was based on the X-ray spectral studies of Active Galactic Nuclei. She has worked on the multi-wavelength SEDmodelling and variability studies of AGN. Her current research work involves the observational studies ofAGNusingAstroSat data. Soumavo Ghosh, who has joined IUCAA as a Post- Doctoral Fellow in March 2018. He obtained BSc (Honours) (2010) degree in Mathematics from the University of Burdwan, and MSc (2012) degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata. He completed PhD (2018) degree from IISc, Bengaluru. His doctoral research has mainly focused on the spiral structure in disk galaxies and investigation of dynamical effects of the dark matter halo and the interstellar gas on the generation and survival of spiral structure in disk galaxies. After joining IUCAA, he has moved to the area of evolution of galaxies via mergers and gas accretion. His current interest includes N-body modelling of isolated disk galaxies, formation mechanism(s) of lenses in S0 galaxies and their photometric and kinematic characterisation, study of stellar angular momentum evolution in S0 galaxies with lens using presently- available samples from various IFS surveys, deciphering the nature of spiral structure of Milky Way using Gaia data release 2 (DR2), studying the effect of finite-thickness of disk in a galaxy on the spiral structure, and mutual role of shear and interstellar gas and the associatedpitch angle in disk galaxies. Reju Sam John, who has joined IUCAA as a Post- Doctoral Fellow in September 2018. He has obtained BSc (2006) and MSc (2008) degrees from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. He obtained PhD (2018) degree from Pondicherry University. His research interests are on the study of evolution and energetics of galaxy groups and clusters through cosmological simulations (dark + baryonic matter). He also investigates the thermal and non-thermal effects of interaction between galaxies in clusters and groups by us using a community-developed adaptive mesh refinement simulation code ENZO. He tries to solve some of the long-standing open problems in the physics of formation and evolution of galaxy groups and clusters. He is also interested in the generation and evolution of large-scale shocks, turbulence, cosmic ray acceleration and non- thermal radiation processes in the group cluster forming environment. Since he has been handling big data, he has developed skills in combining statistics, mathematics, programming, and problem-solving to findpatterns in the big data. Bharat Kumar, who has been working in the field of nuclear theory and astrophysics focusing, mainly on developing nuclear energy density functionals of the relativistic mean-field model. Recently, he has generated and tested two new parameter sets (IOPB-I and G3) in different regimes, such as finite nuclei, infinite nuclear matter, and the neutron star. Also, he has used the equation of state of neutron-star matter to calculate stellar properties of the neutron star, such as composition, mass, radii, moments of inertia, tidal deformability, and gravitational wave emissions. He has joined IUCAA as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in September 2018. He has obtained BSc (2010) and MSc (2012) degrees, both from Aligarh Muslim University, and did PhD research work at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. During PhD, he has proposed new neutron- | KHAG L | No. 116 - OCTOBER 2018 | 05