Dr. Abhishek Desai,
NASA Postdoctoral Fellow (NPP)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
Contact: adesai.physics@gmail.com
Brief about me:
NPP fellow at NASA GSFC: I am currently using multi-messenger + multi-wavelength astronomy to explain processes happening inside an AGN at NASA GSFC as a NPP fellow. This is done by extending observations from NASA missions, NICER+NUSTAR+Fermi-LAT with IceCube. I have not given up on Galactic neutrino signals too and plan to extend my simulation study to both high and low energy neutrinos.
I am also currently working on increasing the science outcomes that can be achieved from collaborations and new research. This can help lead to additional collaborations between particle physicists and astrophysicists, leading to new ideas. This work also includes educating both the communities about the proper usage of analysis tools and software available for multi-messenger research.
To work on this, I hosted a splinter session at the AAS-HEAD 2023 meeting (and an upcoming one at the AAS winter meeting) to promote collaboration between researchers interested in multi-messenger astrophysics. I have also served in multiple review panels, which allows me to provide my research experience as needed and also helps me understand the processes that make sure new and interesting science cases are prioritized, and all research is judged fairly.
Postdoc at UW Madison: In 2019 I secured the John Bahcall fellowship at University of Wisconsin-Madison (WIPAC) to study the possibility of AGN being sources of astrophysical neutrinos seen by the IceCube detector. I worked on understanding the radio-neutrino correlation in AGN. I also worked on simulating the Galactic neutrino signal using a simulation package we developed named SNuGGY (also on Github). In addition to this scientific work, I also participated in outreach events like summer school, hosted at WIPAC
PHD Work: I received my PhD in 2019 from Clemson University, South Carolina. During my PhD years, I worked on studying the diffuse background which is composed of all the light observed in the universe in the UV to IR regime, dubbed extragalactic background light (EBL). This was done using the spectra observed using the NASA mission, Fermi-LAT, of observed active galactic nuclei (AGN) and gamma-ray bursts. During my PhD, I also worked as an instructor of astronomy for a summer school at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Talented Youth.