2014-2017 WRF and Moore/Sloan Postdoctoral Fellow
Specializations
Astronomy & Physics, Statistics
Rahul Biswas was a Moore/Sloan Data Science and WRF Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow from 2014-2017. He is currently continuing his postdoctoral research at Stockholm University in Sweden.
Biography
Department of Astronomy
UW mentors
Andy Connolly, Astronomy
Magdalena Balazinska, Computer Science & Engineering
Marina Meila, Statistics
Education history
Post-doctoral researcher, Argonne National Laboratory, 2010-14
Ph.D., Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010
M.S., Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004
M.S., Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 2001
B.S., Physics (honors), Presidency College, University of Calcutta, 1999
Research goals
Rahul Biswas’ research goals were related to quantifying the phenomenology of the late-time acceleration of the expansion of the universe, often described in terms of properties of “dark energy,” the substance assumed to drive this acceleration. Two of the key challenges to cosmological studies of this type are (a) the data tend to be large and low signal-to-noise (b) the incomplete knowledge (obviously rich research frontiers in themselves) of astrophysical objects used to draw cosmological inferences.
Biswas’ research involved constructing and sharpening probes of cosmology using methods of statistical inferences from such large datasets, iterating the models of astrophysical objects used in such inferences by using simulations or data, and accounting for the complications arising from the observational system. He also used these tools to forecast performance capabilities of a survey, as a step towards optimizing the survey for scientific impact.