Navin Sridhar

PhD Astrophysics (Sept 2018 - May 2024)

NASA FINESST and AAS National Osterbrock Leadership fellow

Columbia University

1328 Pupin Hall, MC 5246
550 West 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
navin{dot}sridhar{at}columbia{dot}edu

Research

My research spans various aspects of high-energy astrophysics and transient, multimessenger signals from compact object-binary stellar interactions viz., accretion around compact objects, emission mechanisms of high-energy non-thermal X-rays from black hole coronae, the physics of particle heating and acceleration in astrophysical plasmas (and the emission of high-energy neutrinos from them), and the origin of coherent radio emission from sources like Pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts. I study them by performing kinetic plasma simulations (PIC), hydrodynamical fluid simulations, analytical pen-and-paper modeling, and also by directly observing the astronomical sources via satellite and ground-based telescopes. I was advised by Lorenzo Sironi and Brian D. Metzger durnig my PhD. I will be joining Stanford University in Fall 2024 as a Simons Collaboration (SCEECS) postdoctoral fellow.

Check out NASA ADS/Google Scholar for a list of publications.

News coverage and appearences

Super sharp images with EVN reveal another Fast Radio Burst Coming from a Hypernebula [JIVE; 29-Nov-2023] [ASTRON; 01-Dec-2023] [Universe Today; 05-Dec-2023]
Astronomers caught a potent radio burst blasting at us from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away [Popular Science; 09-June-2022]
AstroSat Catches Nuclear Reactions Spreading Across a Neutron Star [The Wire; 07-October-2021]
Long burst short: an unexpected supernova [Research Matters; 26-July-2021]
Fast Radio Bursts from globular clusters and what could power them [National Geographic; 27-May-2021]
Digging the grave: In search of the remains of merging black holes and neutron stars [Research Matters; 14-Sept-2021]
Fast Radio Bursts from Galactic magnetar [The Wire; 03-June-2020] [AAS Nova; 09-Sept-2020]
Black hole bends light on itself [Gizmodo; 10-April-2020] [Caltech News; 08-April-2020] [SYFY; 09-July-2020]

Teaching

At Columbia:

Academic year 2020-2021: Department Head TA
Spring 2020: Instructor of ASTRW1903 Astronomy lab I
Fall 2019: Instructor of ASTRW1904 Astronomy lab II
Spring 2019: TA for ASTRX1754 Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology
Fall 2018: TA for ASTRUN1836 Stars and Atoms
On advanced track of Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning's (CTL) Teaching Development Program.

Outside Columbia:

Lead instructor at the Yale Young Global Scholars program - 2020 (Postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic)
Trained to incorporate inquiry-based learning techniques in STEM education through the ISEE-Professional Development Program (PDP-2019). Designed and taught inquiry activity on measuremen tuncertainties an dstatistical techniques. Target audience: Physics/Astronomy undergraduate transfer students at University of California, Los Angeles (Fall 2019). Click here for more details on the adopted teaching practice.

Social media

Twitter