Astronomy Olympiad stars prefer Indian skies

Varun Bhalerao, 28, of Pune and Sriharsh Tendulkar, 25, of Mumbai epitomise the Gen Next of Indian astronomy. The two budding scientists, who are pursuing their doctoral thesis at the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA and doing cutting edge work are keen to return and work in India. They represent the new face of Indian astronomy.

Both young men are products of the Indian Astronomy Olympiad movement, which has been nurturing school and college talent in the country for several years now. While Varun bagged one bronze and two gold medals in the astronomy Olympiad events in the 1998-2000 period, Sriharsh bagged two gold medals in the 2002-03 period.

The duo pursued their undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. While Varun graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, Sriharsh completed a degree in engineering physics. The good news is that the two men are planning to come back to India very soon to pursue research in the field of astronomy.

Varun, whose doctoral studies involve developing X-ray detectors for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space telescope, said the detectors were ready and the telescope would be launched in February 2012. He is also working with the director, Caltech optical observatories, Shrinivas Kulkarni on the measurement of heavy neutron stars. Varun said, “My time at Caltech has been fruitful and I am looking forward to coming back to India to pursue astronomy research.”

Likewise, Sriharsh was indebted to the astronomy Olympiad movement in India for creating an interest in astronomy in him. “As an Olympiad student, I trained at the giant metre radio telescope at Khodad, the Kavalur telescope in Tamil Nadu and the Ooty radio telescope. This encouraged me to pursue engineering physics at IIT Bombay and later go to Caltech for my PhD,” Sriharsh said.

Sriharsh is working on the world’s first robotic adaptive optic (Robo-AO) in the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)-Caltech collaborative project (DNA, Aug 25). He said, “I have learnt a lot about sophisticated hardware in this project. It has been exciting to handle high-tech equipment at Caltech. There is no dearth of ideas at Caltech. There is a lot to learn from the brainstorming sessions there.”

Like Varun, Sriharsh plans to come to India after completing his PhD. “I would like to work specifically in the world of astronomical instrumentation in India,” Sriharsh said.