Why would a young astronomer from India travel some 8,000 miles around the world to pursue his Ph.D. in physics? Simple. Pratyusava Baral wanted to study with the UW-Milwaukee physicists who deciphered the data for the first-ever detection of gravitational waves.
Baral came to UWM in 2021 after earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at Presidency University in Kolkata, India. His journey has been well worth it, and he’s earned the Physics and Astronomy Department’s Nicholas J. Papastamatiou Award, which recognizes an outstanding graduate student.
“This award is a tremendous honor,” says Baral, whose work on algorithms helped detect gravitational waves in the recently concluded fourth observational run of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration, an international consortium of dozens of institutions and hundreds of researchers. “I am humbled and proud to be selected for this award by my faculty mentors.”
Baral will complete his doctorate in June and begin a postdoctoral fellowship in September at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Read the full story on UWM Report.
By Maridel Allinder, Marketing & Communications