Harish Vedantham Kapteyn Astronomical Institute University of Groningen Landleven 12, 9747 AD, Groningen, The Netherlands Tel: +31 50 363 4081 Email: harish@astro.rug.nl Webpage: www.astro.rug.nl/~harish Skype: harish_vedantham Education Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen PhD May, 2011 June 2015 Thesis: Opening the low frequency window to the high redshift Universe PhD Adviser: Prof. Leon Koopmans Dept. Of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Master of Science (MSc) Sept, 2006 Aug, 2009 Thesis: Design and Development of a Ka band Interferometer for Cryospheric Applications MS Adviser: Prof. Paul Siqueira Dept. of Telecommunications Engineering, R.V College of Engineering, India Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Aug, 2002 Aug, 2006 Research Experience Millikan postdoctoral fellow California Institute of Technology, U.S.A Sept, 2011 present PhD, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute Groningen, The Netherlands May, 2011 June 2015 Development and application (to LOFAR data) of novel observing and data processing techniques for EoR science, Theoretical and observational study of speckle noise in interferometry Research Associate, Raman Research Institute Bangalore, India Sept, 2009 April, 2011 Novel foreground mitigation and imaging algorithms for EoR Research Assistant, Microwave Remote Sensing Research Lab, UMass, Amherst Amherst, MA, USA Aug, 2006 Aug, 2009 Design, development and first deployment of a Ka band interferometric radar Skills Theoretical Wave propagation and scattering Radiative processes in astrophysics Statistical signal processing Interferometry, and Fourier synthesis imaging Instrumentation
Antenna and phased array design RF and microwave measurements PCB and analog circuit design Programming Matlab, C (extensive) C++, Python (intermediate) Data Processing MIRIAD and CASA (radio astronomy software) LOFAR EoR pipeline processing on a parallel GPU cluster Teaching & Supervision Teaching Assistant Statistical Signal Processing (graduate level course), University of Groningen Fall 2012, Fall 2013 Designing the problem sets for practical sessions, leading discussion sessions and question hours, grading of homeworks and final projects Microwave Engineering II (graduate level course), UMASS, Amherst Spring 2008 Leading discussion sessions and question hours, grading of homeworks Supervision Mike Sushta (summer research student, UMASS, Amherst) co supervised his undergraduate summer project on the development of a data acquisition system for interferometric radars Ajinkya Patil (summer research student, Raman Research Institute, India) co supervised his work on commissioning the MWA testbed Observing Awards PI Using lunar occultations to measure the global redshift 21 cm signal between 36 MHz and 84 MHz, LOFAR commissioning proposal (6 hours, 32 TB). Lunar occultation: Towards measurement of the global redshift 21 cm signal from cosmic dawn, LOFAR cycle 1&2 proposal (36 hours, 200 TB) Detection and characterization of the lunar ionosphere, LOFAR cycle 4 proposal (9 hours, 70 TB) Using the moon for absolute calibration of cosmic radio background measurements, LWA1 cycle 4 proposal (6 hours, 2.5 TB) Co PI Studying the Epoch of Reionization and Cosmic Dawn of the Universe, LOFAR EoR umbrella proposal (3000 hours) Honors & Recognitions Millikan prized fellowship, Physics Mathematics and Astronomy, Caltech (2015) Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (UMASS, Amherst) Spring 2008 Tuition waiver (MS degree, UMASS, Amherst) Sept 2006 Special honor (R.V College of Engineering) for standing first at the end of sophomore year, 2004
Professional Service Selected to represent NOVA (Netherlands Research School for Astronomy) during an international review, 2014 Member of the Organizing Committee of the Dutch Astronomy Conference (NAC 2012) Volunteer during open days of the Blaauw Observatory in Groningen Selected Presentations All sky signals from recombination to reionization, Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometer Array (Sicily, Italy, May 2014) Lofar Cosmic Dawn Search Chasing the Lunar shadow, Seminar given at CU Boulder, and Arizona State University (Jan 2014) The LOFAR Cosmic dawn Search, The Meterwavelength Sky Conference (Pune, India, December 2013) Measuring the global 21 cm signal with an interferometer, The Radio Universe at Ger s wavelengths (Groningen, The Netherlands, November 2013) The LOFAR cosmic dawn search, EoR Global Signal Workshop (Sydney, Australia, November 2012) Effect of the three dimensional point spread function on the statistical detection of EoR, Understanding Galactic and Extragalactic Foregrounds: A road to success for cosmological experiments (Zadar, Croatia, May 2011) A Ka band interferometer for cryospheric applications instrument description and first results, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (Boston, USA, 2008) Personal Information Nationality : Indian Languages : English, Kannada, Hindi (fluent), Bulgarian (intermediate) Marital Status : Married Date of Birth: January 11, 1985
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS As first author Ionospheric speckle noise in measurements of 21 cm signal from the epoch of reionization, Vedantham H.K., Koopmans L.V.E., de Bruyn A.G., et al., Under Review, MNRAS Scintillation noise in widefield radio interferometry, Vedantham H.K. and Koopmans L.V.E, MNRAS, 453, 925, (2015) Lunar occultation of the diffuse radio sky: LOFAR measurements between 35 and 80 MHz, Vedantham H.K., Koopmans L.V.E., de Bruyn A.G., et al., MNRAS, 450, 229, (2015) Chromatic effects in the 21 cm global signal from the cosmic dawn, Vedantham H.K., Koopmans L.V.E., de Bruyn A.G., Wijnholds S.J., Ciradi B. and Brentjens M., MNRAS 437, 1056 (2014) Imaging the Epoch of Reionization: Limitations from Foreground Confusion and Imaging Algorithms, Vedantham H.K., Udaya Shankar N., and Subrahmanyan R., ApJ 745, 176 (2012) As a co author All sky signals from recombination to reionization, Subrahmanyan R., Udaya Shankar N., Pritchard J., and Vedantham H.K. (Chapter in Science with the Square Kilometer Array), In press, PoS, 2014 Constraining the epoch of reionization with the variance statistic: simulations of the LOFAR case, Patil A.H., Zaroubi S., Chapman E., et al, MNRAS 443, 111 (2014) Initial LOFAR observations of epoch of reionization windows. II. Diffuse polarized emission in the ELAIS N1 field, Jelic V., de Bruyn A.G., Mevius M., et al, A&A, 568, 101 (2014) Probing reionization with LOFAR using 21 cm redshift space distortions, Hannes J., Datta K.K., Garrelt M., et al, MNRAS 435, 460 (2013) Reionization and the Cosmic Dawn with the Square Kilometre Array, Garrelt M., Koopmans L.V.E., Filipe A.A., et al, Exp. Astron., 36, 235, (2013) LOFAR insights into the epoch of reionization from the cross power spectrum of 21 cm emission and galaxies, Wiersma R.P.C., Ciardi B., Thomas R.M. Et al, MNRAS 432, 2615, (2013) Initial deep LOFAR observations of epoch of reionization windows. I. The north celestial pole, Yatawatta S., de Bruyn A.G., Brentjens M., et al, A&A, 550, 136 (2013) Prospects for detecting the 21 cm forest from the diffuse intergalactic medium with LOFAR, Ciradi B., Labropoulos P., Maselli A., et al, MNRAS, 428, 1755 (2013) The LOFAR radio environment, Offringa A., de Bruyn A.G., Zaroubi S., et al, A&A, 549, 11 (2013) Imaging neutral hydrogen on large scales during the Epoch of Reionization with LOFAR, Zaroubi S., de Bruyn A.G., Harker G., et al, MNRAS, 425, 2964 (2012) First Spectroscopic Imaging Observations of the Sun at Low Radio Frequencies with the Murchison Widefield Array Prototype, Oberoi D., Matthews L.D., Cairns I.H., et al, ApJ, 728, 27, (2011)
Other peer reviewed publications Design and development of a Ka band interferometry for cryospheric applications, Vedantham H.K., Masters thesis, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst (2009) A Ka band interferometer for cryospheric applications Instrument description and first results, Vedantham H.K., Siqueira P.R., Srinivasan K., Insanic E., Proceedings: IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, (2008) A portable 35 GHz cross track interferometer for topographic and surface change measurements, Siqueira P., Vedantham H.K., and Swochak T., Proceedings: IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, (2010)