Pranav Sanghavi, Ph.D.

I earned my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University. My doctoral work focused on localizing Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). I built and commissioned an interferometric array at Green Bank Observatory as a VLBI outrigger station for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) FRB project. I have also helped run the “Research Experience for Teachers - Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy” (RET-DSPIRA) program since the summer of 2017. This program helps bring radio astronomy and digital signal processing to high school classrooms by enabling teachers to build radio telescopes and relevant infrastructure from scratch.

With Dr. Laura Newburgh at Yale, I leverage my instrumentation and radio interferometry background to analyze and hopefully eventually detect the elusive neutral hydrogen 21cm signal gleaned from the CHIME cosmology data.

Additionally, I am moonlighting to further my doctoral work in VLBI localizations of fast radio bursts with the CHIME/FRB outriggers.

Before WVU, I completed my B.Tech. in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, and a visiting studentship focused on radio astronomy research at Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India. I like making all kinds of art and music in my copious free time. I am an avid home cook who occasionally cooks specials as a guest chef at a local restaurant for fun during my Ph.D. days!