A. N. Ramaprakash

Designation: Scientist 'H' (Professor); Head, Instrumentation; Dean, Visitor Programme

Area: Astronomical Instrumentation; Observations

Works on building instruments for astronomy – both ground-based and space-borne. Observational interests are in polarization studies of a variety of sources like brown dwarfs, dark molecular clouds, blazars. Also interested in studying variables like GRB afterglows, T-Tauri stars, blazars etc.

 Tel : 109

 

 

 

Abhay Kohok

Designation: Scientific Officer 'B'

Area: Optics / Mechanical

Primarily works on IGO mirror recoating, Maintenance of coating plant, Opto-Mechanical work, Optics Testing,  Mechanical designing, Cryogenics, Vacuum systems

 Tel: 301

 

 

 

Bhushan Joshi

Designation: Scientific Officer 'B'

Area: Electronics

Tel: 366

 

 

 

 

 

Chaitanya Rajarshi

Designation: Scientific Assistant III

Area: Optics

Primarily works on designing optics for astronomical instruments using Zemax software. Also doubles up as IGO telescope operator.

 Tel: 304

 

 

 

 

Deepa Modi

Designation: Scientific Officer 'E'
 

Research interest includes Opto-Mechanical design and its application in building astronomical instruments. Current work focuses on design, integration and testing of optics and instruments.

 Tel: 304

 

 

 

 

 Hillol Kanti Das

Designation: Scientific Officer 'F'

Area: Optics

Research interest includes instrumentation for space as well as ground based telescopes, Infra-Red astronomy, Adaptive optics, CCDs, Vacuum systems, Polarimetry of the interstellar medium and Image Processing.

Personal Homepage: http://www.iucaa.ernet.in/~hkdas/

 Tel: 354

 

 

 

John Andrew Kypriotakis

 Designation: Visiting Researcher

 Area: High Energy Astrophysics, ISM, Instrumentation

 Research interest includes High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, ISM Interactions, Polarimetric and Astronomical Instrumentation

 Personal Homepage:https://www.heisenbergk.com/

 

 

 Kalpesh Chillal

Designation: Scientific Officer 'D'

Area: Electronics

Involved in Functional Block diagram ,Schematic and  Multilayer PCB Design (Analog Digital), and testing using tools like OrCAD Capture and  Allegro  PCB Edit. Additional responsibility includes repair and maintenance of telescope backend instrument electronics.

 Tel: 352/366

 

                                 

 

Mahesh Burse 

Designation: Scientific Officer 'F'

Area: Electronics

Research interest includes design of CCD Camera, SIDECAR ASIC based IR camera, VLSI and embedded systems, high speed data acquisition systems and software development.

 Tel: 353/366

  

 

                                 

 

Nilesh D. Pokharkar 

Designation: Scientific/Technical Assistant I

Area: IUCAA Girawali Observatory (IGO) Operations

Operating IGO 2-meter optical telescope, photometry, spectroscopy, polarimetry observations, general daily maintenance. iRobo-AO insturment operations. Science popularization (especially astronomy/astrophysics) involving interactions with nearby schools/colleges. Supervising almost all activities including visitors, canteen, estate, administration related services at IGO.

  

 

 

 

Pravin Chordia

Designation: Scientific Officer 'F'

Area: Electronics

Primary work involves Designing, Testing, Optimizing and Implementing Detector Controllers. Area of Interest includes Analog and Mixed Signal circuit designing for Astronomical Instrumentation. Also involved in IGO Maintenance, Mixed Signal PCB design, Electronic Component selection and Procurement.

Tel: 351/366

 

 

 

Pravin Khodade

Designation: Technical Officer 'B'

Area: Mechanical

Works on mechanical design of astronomical instruments

 Tel: 304

 

 

 

Rani Bhandare

Designation: Technical Officer - 'B'

Area:  Primarily works on electronic schematic and multi-layer PCB design using OrCAD software, involved in development of astronomical and scientific instruments, detector controller mechanical assembly and maintenance, electronics components assembly on PCB, maintenance and procurement of Electronics components

 Tel: 366

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sujit Punnadi

Designation: Scientific Officer 'E'

Area: Software

Primarily works on application software development on linux platform with interests in device drivers, middleware, parallel programming and kernel development on Linux platform. Additional responsibilites include lab related web and IT administration.

 Tel: 261

 

 

 

 

 

Swapnil Prabhudesai

Designation: Scientific Assistant

Area: Adaptive Optics

Primarily works on Phase Retrieval problem in Adaptive Optics, using MATLAB. Also doubles up as IGO telescope operator.

 Tel: 301

 

 

 

    

Vilas Mestry

Designation: Scientific Officer 'B'

Area: Electronics

Involved  in the assembly ,testing and maintenance of electronic circuits.

 Tel: 366

 

Past Contributors:

 

                             

 Madhusudan Malve

Designation: Software Engineer

Area: Software

Primarily works on Design and Development of Instrument and Observatory Control System for India's largest telescope DOTIFS. Area of interest includes Software Architecture Design and Development, Robotics, Java and Database. Has previous experience in QTP Development and Functional Testing along with Test Planning, Design and Execution (Automation and Manual). Additional responsibilities includes Web Design and Maintenance.

 

 

 Ravi Kesharwani

 Designation: Electronics Engineer

 Area:  Primarily works on designing, testing and Optical Alignment of Scientific Instruments. Also works on different electronic part of the system mainly Analog Circuit Design, VLSI -FPGA, Analog Processing Circuits for          

 CCD/CMOS, Embedded, Multi layer PCB Designing. Development of Space-borne instruments as well as ground based scientific instruments. 

 

 

 

Sorabh Chhabra

Designation: Senior Research Fellow (SRF), IUCAA

Area: Adaptive Optics and its alternatives - Theory, Simulation and Instruments.Works on accurate turbulence simulation, simulation of an accurate imaging system, algorithm development for speckle correlation-based imaging through atmospheric turbulence (post-processing imaging techniques), adaptive optics real-time on sky calibration at 2m class telescope IGO, Pune. Building instrument called "SIMULATOR - Speckle Imager via MUlti-Layer Atmospheric Turbulence Object Reconstructor" to mimics large scale telescope characteristics (up to 25 m in diameter) inside the lab.

 

Aafaque R K
Designation: Systems Engineer

Area: Space-borne Payloads and Systems, Optics/Mechanical

Research Interests includes EUV/UV Astronomy, Space-borne instruments, Nano-satellites, Computational Fluid dynamics and Thermal Analysis, Opto-mechanical Design, Systems Engineering

 

 

 

 

 

Akshay Kulkarni

Designation: Engineer

Area: Mechanical

Primary work involves the application of mechanical engineering concepts to instrument building. Also interested in optomechanical systems, spaceborne instruments, and robotics.

 

 

 

 

 

Atul Deep

Designation: Optical Research Engineer at ESTEC/ European Space Agency

Research interests:  Optical support to Earth observation and Science Missions, Contract Management for R & D activities, Roadmap preparation for Large mirrors, Optical Metrology

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avinash Surendran

Designation: Visiting Student

Area: Electronics

Site Survey Instruments, Adaptive Optics, FPGA, Open Source Hardware, Astrophotography

 

 

 

 

 

Avyarthana Ghosh

Designation: Research Scholor

Area: Solar Physics

Involved in performance modelling, throughput calculations and data handling for the Solar UV Imaging Telescope (SUIT), a payload of the Aditya mission. Also engaged in observational studies of existing solar satellite data that focuses on dynamics and coupling of the solar chromosphere, transition region and corona.

 

 

 

 

 

Chaitra A. Narayan

Designation: Project Manager

Area: Astronomy

Research interests include Systems Design, Adaptive Optics, Image Processing, Software Development and Project Management.

 

 

 

 

 

Haeun Chung

Designation: Visiting Research Scholar

Area: Astronomical Instrumentation, Cosmology, Large Scale Structure

A PhD student from Seoul National University as well as a research assistant from Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) has interests in building astronomical instruments. Currently works on Integral Field Spectrograph, including optics design with Zemax.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyotirmay Paul

 Designation: Optics Engineer

 Area: Optics

 Involved in Optical System Design

 

 

 

 

 

Mudit Srivastava

Designation: Scientist 'D' at A&A Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad

Area: Astronomical Instrumentation; Observations.

Research interest includes development of Astronomical and applied/industrial optical instrumentation. Observational interest involves studies of transient objects like novae.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parvathi S

 Designation: Electronics Design Engineer

 Area: Power engineering, electronic design, software developmentWorks on electronics design and development of interfacing software modules. Key skills include knowledge of simulation packages, design packages, web designing, GUI development, troubleshooting etc.  

 

 

 

 

 

Ranjan Gupta

Designation: Scientist 'G' (Professor)

Area: Astronomical Instrumentation; Observations

1. Research Interests: 1) Stellar Physics   2) Interstellar Dust and Extinction and its modeling
2.                               3) Astronomical Instrumentation      4) Neural Networks

 

 

 

 

 

  Rupali Pandurang Bharati

  Designation: Embedded Systems Engineer (VLSI)
  Area: FPGA design/verification
  Involved in FPGA Design / verification.

 

 

 

 

 

Area of interest: Optical Design, Fourier Optics, Digital Image Processing, Machine Learning, Solar Astronomy

 

 

 

 

 

Sabyasachi Chattopadhyay

Designation: Research Scholar

Area: Optics / Electronics

Research interests in Optical Instrumentation and Electronics Controller.

 

 

 

 

Vishal Joshi

Designation: Post Doctoral Fellow

Area: Astronomical Instrumentation, Near-infrared and optical Astronomy

Research interest includes astronomical instrumentation, observational studies of supernovae, novae and novalike variable stars, image and data processing, automated analysis in astronomy.