Nimisha Kumari

As an ESA/AURA astronomer,  Dr. Nimisha Kumari divides her time with the JWST/NIRSpec team and conducting her research. She joined the STScI in 2019, as a STScI Prize Fellow in the HST/COS team, where she worked on the wavelength calibration of blue modes, and also provided user-support as a contact scientist.

Dr. Kumari’s research is mainly driven by questions related to galaxy formation and evolution, focusing on its three fundamental properties - chemical abundances, star-formation and gas-dynamics. She addresses these questions via observational studies of emission line galaxies, primarily using integral field and multi-object spectrographs.  She is also experienced with ultraviolet spectroscopy and multi-wavelength (FUV, optical, IR, radio) data analysis from various ground-based and space-borne instruments.

Before joining STScI in 2019, she was an independent research fellow funded by a Schlumberger fellowship, working mainly with Profs. Roberto Maiolino and Mike Irwin at the University of Cambridge. She also completed her PhD in Astronomy there in October 2018 supervised by Prof. Mike Irwin and Dr. Bethan James. STScI provided her a great opportunity to pursue an astronomy project as a summer student in 2013, when she worked as summer student with Dr. Andrew Fox. She cares about making education and astronomy available to children and students (especially from disadvantaged backgrounds), and has been a part of several outreach efforts.

Education:

PhD in Astronomy, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
MSc in Astrophysics, Ecole Polytechnique, France
MSc (Multidisciplinary), Ecole Polytechnique, France
MRes (Astronomy, Astrophysics & Spatial Engineering), Ecole Polytechnique, France
BSc (Honors) Physics, University of Delhi, India

Science Interests:

• Local analogues of high redshift galaxies, star-forming galaxies, emission line galaxies
• Star-forming regions, diffuse ionised gas, compact high-velocity clouds
• Physics of the interstellar medium, chemical abundances, metallicity gradients
• Metallicity scaling relations, Metallicity diagnostics, Schmidt relation of star-formation

Research Topics: Star Formation, Histories, and Evolution, Galaxy Formation and Evolution, Interstellar Medium, Astrochemistry, Chemical Abundances

WEBSITE:

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5320-2568