I am a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland. My reseacrh is centred around BETTII - Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry [link: http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/bettii/] which is under construction at NASA GSFC. It is a pathfinder experiment for space-based interferometry and is expected to further our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution through spatially resolved spectroscopy. As the optics lead in the mission, I am majorly involved in optics alignment; characterizing and testing the opto-mechanical parts; organizing and combining all the related efforts to deliver a successfully working optics subsystem in time for launch.

I am also studying turbulence-driven star formation in clusters by analyzing the kinematics of Serpens and Perseus cloud filaments. This is being done as a continuation of the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy) by studying specific filaments using optically thin dense gas tracers.