Pankaj Bhambhani, Fras (He/Him/His) Email & Phone Number

As an amateur astronomer, I enjoy sharing the wonders of the universe as we humans know it. Hence, I publish content under the word Human Astronomy. Its small beginnings but I look forward to growing steadily.Instagram @humanastronomy - https://www.instagram.com/humanastronomy

As part of my Master's thesis, I examined the effect of local environment on the colour of galaxies within a galaxy group or galaxy cluster. I found that galaxies which are in denser environments (such as the centre of a cluster) are more likely to be red (i.e. no longer forming new stars), while those on the outskirts are more likely to be blue (still forming new stars). This finding is helpful for theorists to improve their simulation models to better understand how galaxies form and evolve. We are working to publish this work as a paper.The skills I gained from this project are: literature review, data analysis, writing and communication. I worked on this independently with limited guidance needed from my project supervisor.

I worked with Dr Brian and the Deep Skies group at Fermilab. As part of my work, I employed Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) on telescope images to learn parameters for theoretical models inastronomy. These models predict the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing of sources by foreground galaxies. I also assessed the usefulness of BNNs by studying output distributions and the resulting uncertainties (epistemic, aleatoric).I presented my work as a poster at the 236th meeting of American Astronomical Society, see poster here - https://aas236-aas.ipostersessions.com/?s=BC-43-D7-07-BE-1A-64-A0-E2-EF-0F-87-5D-91-93-F1Skills – Bayesian Neural Networks, Variational Inference, PyTorch, FastAI, Python

Master Of Science (Msc), Astrophysics

Summer School, Cosmology

Attended a summer school is cosmology organized by the University of Michigan, in June 2020. Topics covered include cosmological parameter.