SAVYASACHI
Siddharth Savyasachi Malu, PhD
& all things in between
Savyasachi is an astrophysicist, an instrumentation (radio frequency) expert, a data analysis / machine learning / AI / neuroscience enthusiast and a former poet. He has a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), where he received a Jansky Fellowship (2006-2007). Over the last decade, teaching has been a passion, as also mentoring and guiding school and undergraduate students. He has headed curriculum reform at IIT Indore. His teaching philosophy and practice is to get the students to be “hands-on”, so that the classroom and the lab are a single resource for students, and therefore should be integrated. In other words, the classroom MUST be a laboratory where students toy with explanations and stitch them together to understand, explore, and create, with the mentor / teacher guiding them along.
His current research focus is radio astronomy instrumentation and galaxy clusters, especially radio observations of cluster mergers. Based on their work on galaxy cluster mergers, Savyasachi and Abhi are leading a project on making India’s first radio observatory inside an institute / university. This project is funded by DST-SERB. With collaborators, he discovered the first non-thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect at cm wavelengths, which is a step towards estimating the total energy budget of galaxy clusters, currently ill-constrained. This is one of the main aims of his research.
Currently upskilling in Machine Learning and AI, Savyasachi also dabbles in tinkering with small electronic equipment and now offers solutions for small electronics and communications needs, with collaborators.
The straitjacketed bio over, here's the reality. With a highly non-linear trajectory throughout his life, he is a lazy dreamer and tends to generally swim against any tide he finds himself in..ecumenically, grammatically, mathematically, physically and psychologically. He is a failure by any sensible standards, and a mad, bad egg - contact at your own risk.
Why chetterhummin
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, the motivation for psychohistory arose from the general idea of preserving humanity. Ironically, this idea was formulated by two robots - R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov as the Zeroth Law of Robotics.
R. Daneel Olivaw lives on and lays the foundation of the Galactic Empire, and assumes two identities in the reign of Cleon I:
- Eto Demerzel, the Emperor's trusted Minister
- Chetter Hummin, a mischievous reporter who inspires and pushes Hari Seldon to formulate psychohistory as a science. His name is a play on the words cheater and human. So, his name can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. The way I choose to interpret it is as follows. R. Daneel Olivaw cheats the death of human civilization through his invention of psychohistory. He is therefore the most compassionate of humans...hence the name of this website.
DST-SERB Project on Astronomical Instrumentation
Assembly of a Radio Telescope at IIT Indore
Low-cost Radio Telescope
For pedagogy and small research projects
2-way communications at L-Band
For communications protocol exploration
CSIR Project: SZ Effect in Galaxy Clusters
Galaxy cluster characterization using the SZ effect
Diffuse emission in Cluster Mergers
Exploration of high-frequency diffuse emission
IIT Indore, DAASE & Discipline of Physics
- Constructing the first radio telescope in an IIT / a university, led by SSM and AD
- First discovery of non-thermal SZ effect
- Led curriculum reform at IIT Indore
- Best Teacher Award for First-year Electrodynamics
- Initiated IIT Indore’s collaboration with the Indian Army, guided MCTE projects
Redwood
- As the CTO / Head of Training, managed, supervised and trained the trainers
- Responsible for curriculum design, training delivery
- Led a Microsoft project and liaised with their team and sales representatives
- Trained Redwood Data Science students
Raman Research Institute, Bangalore
- Carved out a niche in observing galaxy cluster mergers with the Australia Telescope Compact Array from 1.4 GHz to 20 GHz, hunting for the SZ Effect and diffuse radio emission
- Started his quest for detecting non-thermal SZ effect (ntSZe)
- Worked with Ravi Subrahmanyan on the Bullet cluster SZ effect and diffuse emission at cm-wavelengths
- Observed using ATCA 4 times in 2 years, starting with the first science observations using the new CABB
- GMRT diffuse emission hunt on MACS clusters – led the first group to do so. This was suggested first by Prof. Biman Nath, RRI
- APS-funded extended US visit for collaboration with Prof. Peter Timbie (summer 2011)
IUCAA, Pune
Several projects and discussions which involved new directions as well as extension of work during PhD:
- Observed using the Software Correlator with Ue-Li Pen (About 50 days of observation in 2009)
- Helped Ue-Li Pen and Jeff Peterson with RFI location and characterization
- Sub-band splitting in bolometric interferometry
- Milano-Bicocca funded extended Italy stay for work on Bolometric Interferometry for CMB
- Started efforts to bring Bar-SPOrt, an Italian CMB experiment, to India
- Efforts to start CMB experimentation in India, with support from Prof. Tarun Souradeep, at Prof. Souradeep’s suggestion
- Pedagogy – several lectures on CMB and experimentation for PhD students
- Mentorship of summer project students for projects on CMB
- Active participation in Outreach activities of IUCAA with Senior faculty members
- Part of CMB-LSS Workshop organizing team
University of Wisconsin-Madison
PhD in Astrophysics
University of Chicago
Coursework in cosmology and astrophysics
University of Oxford
Worked with Prof. Subir Sarkar on Primordial Nucleosynthesis
St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University
In the final year, initiated and worked on Acoustics of the Indian drum
The valley laments its distance from the Sky
As the heart looks up to the stars
And sighs out a longing
Disguised as a wish.
How much longer, my Lord,
Before my eyes accept darkness?
How much longer before I dream?
How much longer before peace reigns
my Being?
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The idea for this book grew out of a collective challenge faced by us while trying to teach general relativity to advanced undergraduates and master’s students in engineering and science disciplines. There exist wonderfully detailed and wonderfully simple books on general relativity, but for the above two categories of Indian students, these are either incomplete or altogether too detailed on the math front.
With this book, we aim to provide a self-contained introduction to the basic aspects of general relativity and its applications in astrophysics, while introducing only those mathematical concepts that are absolutely necessary. In doing so, it was crucial to leave out even mentioning terms like manifolds and 1-forms, but the benefits, we feel, far outweigh the shortcomings of this omission.
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A discussion about ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization)'s 2nd Moon exploration mission, Chandrayaan-2
Our department members Dr. Abhirup Datta and Dr. Saurabh Das are leading ISRO-sponsored projects on IRNSS (India's regional equivalent of GPS) and Space Weather studies.
Astrophysicists cheer each other up with birthday greetings
DAASE, IIT Indore's PhD students wishing one of their own on his birthday. Who said Astro & Space are lonely places?