Our P6 researcher Hrishikesh Shetgaonkar was awarded by the Department of Education, Art and Culture of the government of Goa with the significant award of the Manohar Parrikar Goa Scholar Scheme from the period 2022-2023.
The research unit is proud for Mr. Shetgaonkar being decorated with this honourable distinction and the corresponding scholarship, which is assigned by a dedicated screening committee and a selection committee to few selected young scientists with excellent subject-specific qualifications, deep domain knowledge, copious interdisciplinary competencies, a complete range of soft skills, societal engagement and extraordinary proficiencies and aptitudes proven through a long-term application period with elaborate interviews.
After having attained experiences in radio astronomy and in the field of pulsar physics (tomographic studies of pulsar magnetospheres) and as a backend software developer, Mr. Shetgaonkar is active as a PhD student since 2022. In our research unit, Mr. Shetgaonkar is working in the low-frequency regime, examining X-ray and gamma-ray emitting features (so-called knots) on extragalactic jets by analysing data from the international LOFAR telescope. With high-resolution radio observations, he is searching for clues on the high-energy emission processes and on re-acceleration mechanisms of particle populations in the emitting regions. With the pilot dataset, targeting the candidate binary supermassive black hole OJ 287, Mr. Shetgaonkar refined the calibration and analysis pipeline and could recently resolve an X-ray emitting knot in the OJ 287 jet. Within this project, Mr. Shetgaonkar collaborates with Étienne Bonnassieux, Matthias Kadler and Marcus Brüggen and other international partners.
The prestigious prize goes back to Manohar Parrikar (1955 – 2019), former Chief Minister of the Indian federal state of Goa and former minister of the Indian Union government. The goal of the scholarship is to empower young researchers, to encourage them to conduct post-graduate studies at reputed institutions, to boost and benefit from the potential of young scientists and to enabling them to contribute to a sustainable development of the state of Goa.
