Students
Current and recently submitted PhD students
Divya Tahelyani
PhD thesis submitted, August 2026 · SRF, IIT Gandhinagar
Academic background. MSc, Charotar University of Science and Technology.
Divya joined the PhD programme at IIT Gandhinagar in 2022 and submitted her doctoral thesis in August 2026. She is currently continuing at IIT Gandhinagar as a Senior Research Fellow.
Her research focuses on gravitational-wave astrophysics, including multiband observations, decihertz gravitational-wave astronomy, and the use of gravitational waves to probe dark-matter environments.
Recent work includes:
Vishnuprathap K. P.
PhD student, IIT Gandhinagar, 2025–present
Academic background. B.Tech. in Engineering Physics, NIT Calicut.
Vishnuprathap joined the PhD programme in Physics at IIT Gandhinagar in 2025. He completed his B.Tech. in Engineering Physics from NIT Calicut.
His doctoral research is in gravitational-wave astronomy.
Nandini Nair
PhD student, IIT Gandhinagar, 2026–present
Academic background. MSc in Physics, University of Delhi.
Nandini joined the PhD programme in August 2026 after completing her MSc in Physics from the University of Delhi.
Her doctoral research is in gravitational-wave physics.
Aayushi Kotecha
PhD student, IIT Gandhinagar, 2026–present
Academic background. MSc in Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University; recipient of the INSPIRE Scholarship.
Aayushi joined the PhD programme in August 2026. She completed her MSc in Physics from Savitribai Phule Pune University and was a recipient of the INSPIRE Scholarship.
Her doctoral research is in gravitational-wave physics.
Ravi Kesharwani
Continuing Doctoral Programme (CDP) candidate, IUCAA, 2026–present
Academic background. Studied at VIIT Pune, 2011–2015.
Ravi is a Scientific/Technical Officer at IUCAA and works with the LIGO-India instrumentation programme. He is also a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration through IUCAA.
Before joining the LIGO instrumentation effort, Ravi worked on the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) aboard the Aditya-L1 mission, with a particular background in electro-optics and scientific instrumentation.
He joined the Continuing Doctoral Programme (CDP) at IUCAA in January 2026. His doctoral work connects his experience in gravitational-wave instrumentation with gravitational-wave physics.
Former PhD students
Soumen Roy
PhD in Physics, IIT Gandhinagar, 2014–2020
Academic background. MSc, University of Calcutta.
Soumen’s doctoral research at IIT Gandhinagar focused on gravitational-wave searches, template-bank construction, and the physics of compact-binary inspirals.
After completing his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nikhef, Amsterdam, from December 2020 to August 2024. Since November 2024 he has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLouvain, Belgium.
Post-IITGN research. His subsequent work has included compact-binary environments, tests of gravity with eccentric systems, and environmental effects such as line-of-sight acceleration.
Representative work from his time at IIT Gandhinagar:
- Unveiling the spectrum of inspiralling binary black holes
- Effectual template banks for upcoming compact-binary searches in Advanced LIGO and Virgo data
- Hybrid geometric-random template-placement algorithm for gravitational-wave searches
Selected later work:
Amit Reza
PhD in Computational Science, IIT Gandhinagar, 2014–2021
Academic background. M.Tech., MANIT Bhopal.
Amit worked on computational methods for gravitational-wave searches, including dimensionality reduction and efficient reconstruction of matched-filter statistics.
He subsequently held a postdoctoral position at Nikhef and is currently a Scientist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz.
Post-IITGN research. Amit has moved primarily into machine learning for astrophysics and space science. His recent work includes neural-network models for exoplanet atmospheres and climate, machine-learning classification of space-debris light curves, and graph neural networks, alongside continued connections with gravitational-wave data analysis.
Representative work:
Lalit Pathak
PhD, IIT Gandhinagar, 2018–2024
Academic background. Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi.
Lalit’s doctoral work developed fast meshfree methods for gravitational-wave parameter estimation and source localization. This included fast likelihood evaluation, network sky localization, and interpolation of numerical-relativity surrogate waveforms.
After IIT Gandhinagar he was at TIFR Mumbai during 2024–2025 and is currently at IUCAA, Pune.
Post-IITGN research. Lalit has continued work on rapid gravitational-wave inference while also moving into compact-binary astrophysics. One recent direction concerns environmental effects on observed signals, including line-of-sight acceleration from a possible tertiary companion and its degeneracy with orbital eccentricity.
See On the Presence of a Tertiary Compact Object in GW190814.
Representative work:
Abhishek Sharma
PhD, IIT Gandhinagar, 2021–2025
Academic background. Jamia Millia Islamia; university gold medallist.
Abhishek worked on gravitational-wave inference across ground-based, space-based, and decihertz detectors. His doctoral work included template banks for non-standard compact-binary signals, accelerated parameter estimation for LISA sources, and multiband gravitational-wave astronomy.
He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at IUCAA, Pune.
Post-IITGN research. Abhishek has continued developing fast gravitational-wave inference methods while extending his work toward space-based, decihertz, and multiband gravitational-wave astronomy.
Recent examples include Rapid parameter estimation with the full symphony of compact binary mergers using meshfree approximation and IndIGO-D: Probing Compact Binary Coalescences in the Decihertz GW Band.
Representative work: