STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Nitin From Mumbai, India

Xelerate Scholar Nitin was willing to challenge himself and seek answers for his questions regarding the complete energy balance of the universe. By challenging himself, he was able to “think outside the box” and worked on upgrading his knowledge about the most energetic gamma rays known to mankind from distant sources called the blazers down to the atmosphere of earth where they are detected by imaging atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes.  These gamma rays interact with the pool of light that permeates the voids of the Universe, called the extragalactic background light (EBL), through a particle physics process known as pair creation. 

Nitin’s professor and Xelerate mentor from Princeton encouraged him to follow up on his questions regarding the different wavelengths and their contribution to the cosmic light from the Universe. Along with his Xelerate mentor and his zeal to learn more about the different inventories of light in the cosmic history brought him raise significant questions in his paper. 

 Nitin worked on upgrading this framework using splines to model the intensity of the EBL as a function of wavelength.  He encourages everyone to follow their passion, dig in deep and clear with all their queries. He cannot emphasize enough on the importance of attending group sessions at Xelerate along with one’s peers, because this is the place you can ask and solve all your questions, tinkle your brain cells into diving in deeper and testify their stalwart ideas. 

Earlier his professor had this impression that he was quiet a geeky introvert child, and to his surprise he turned out to be quite the opposite at the group and one-on-one sessions. Qualities like zealous, passionate and self-driven determination helped him accomplish his goals and write an independent research paper on his own.