cv

Biographical Information

Name Alex Pandya
Contact alex [dot] pandya05 [at] gmail [dot] com

Education

  • 2023
    PhD in Physics
    Princeton University
  • 2016
    BS in Physics
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

Skills & Certifications

  • Skills
    • Quantitative: numerical methods, PDE, linear algebra, probability theory, statistics, regression, classification
    • Programming: Python, C, C++, Cython, Mathematica, SQL
    • Python libraries: numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas, seaborn, scikit-learn, tensorflow/keras
    • Platforms: Linux, git, bash, slurm, CMake, Microsoft Office
    • Soft skills: science communication, technical project management, interdisciplinary collaboration
  • Certifications

Experience

  • 2023-2024
    Postdoctoral Research Associate
    Cornell University
    • Postdoctoral training in scientific software engineering
  • 2024
    Data Science Boot Camp
    Erdos Institute
    • Accelerated course on data science for PhDs
  • 2019-2023
    NSF Graduate Research Fellow
    Princeton University
    • Research supported by a competitive national fellowship grant
  • 2014-2017
    Undergraduate Research Assistant
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    • Research supported by L. M. Jones Research Award

Open Source Projects

  • 2023-2024
    SpECTRE
    • Worked to develop a dissipative fluid module for the next-generation physics simulation code SpECTRE.
  • 2015-2020
    symphony
    • Authored radiation transport coefficient calculator widely used to model black hole accretion flows, including modeling efforts by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration (published first "photograph" of a black hole in 2019).

Honors and Awards

  • 2023
    Kusaka Memorial Prize in Physics
    • Award for "outstanding performance in research" from the Princeton University Department of Physics.
  • 2019-2023
    NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
    • Competitive national fellowship grant totaling $138,000.
  • 2017
    Robert E. Hetrick Outstanding Senior Thesis Award
    • Award recognizing "outstanding independent research by an undergraduate" from the University of Illinois Physics Department.

Publications

  • I have authored 8 total publications (7 as lead author) on computational physics in Physical Review, Classical and Quantum Gravity, and The Astrophysical Journal. Altogether, the articles have over 200 citations (see Google Scholar). For more details see the Publications page.

Lectures, Conferences, & Teaching

  • I highly value effective science communication, and have worked to develop this skill in the four invited (1 hour) seminars I have given at Bielefeld University (Germany), the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Canada), UIUC, and Vanderbilt University. I have also given four conference talks at the American Physical Society April Meeting, and have served as a teaching assistant for five courses (and taught hundreds of students) at Princeton.