Garima Singh

Areas of expertise

Developing instruments for ground-based telescopes (8-10 meters) to search and directly image (exo-)planets orbiting stars other than our sun. Below, you can find three public articles I wrote, describing a few research problems we are trying to solve:-

• World beyond ours.
• Improving data interpretation of exoplanet images (page 27).
• Paving the way for improving exoplanet imaging with ground-based telescopes.

Areas of research interest

Extreme-Adaptive Optics mainly wavefront sensing and control, post-processing of exoplanet/debris disks and speckle suppression and control algorithms.

Current Affiliation (February 2021 - Present)

Postdoctoral Fellow, Life Signatures on Exoplanets
National Research Council of Canada (NRC)
Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre (HAA)
5071 W Saanich Rd
Victoria V9E 2E7
British Columbia, Canada

Joining Gemini North Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii as an Adaptive Optics Associate Scientist in December 2022.

Fellowships and previous affiliations

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral fellow (June 2018 - September 2020)
  LESIA, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France
• NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow (November 2015 - October 2017)
  NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

I am incredibly grateful to the anonymous reviewers for recognizing my potential and giving me opportunities to perofrm my research work under the umbrella of these gracious titles.

Instruments I worked on

• Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme-Adaptive Optics (SCExAO), Subaru Telescope, Hawaii.
• Palm-3K Extreme AO (P3K), Stellar Double Coronagraph (SDC) system and the high-contrast imager PHARO, Palomar Mountain, California.
• Très Haute Dynamique 2 (THD2), LESIA, Observatoirde de Paris, France.
• NEW EARTH Lab, Victoria BC, Canada
  My main project at NRC HAA includes developing a low-order wavefront sensor for CAL2.0 unit of Gemini Planet Imager (GPI 2.0) and merging the control loop with a focal plane wavefront sensor to improve exoplanet detection sensitivity at small angles. I am also developing an end-end simulation of an exoplanet imaging instrument for Thirty Meter Telescope.

Education

• PhD student (October 2012 - September 2015)
  Subaru Telescope, Hilo, Big Island of Hawaii, USA and,
  LESIA, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France
  Dissertation, 2015: Low-order wavefront control and calibration for phase mask coronagraphs. Mention: Très Honorable
  Thesis Advisors: Dr. Olivier Guyon, Dr. Pierre Baudoz
  
  Given the potential of the Lyot-stop low-order wavefront sensor (LLOWFS) which I developed during my PhD, several direct imaging instruments embraced it. Apart from SCExAO, the LLOWFS is implemented on THD2, NASA’s PICTURE-C balloon mission, under development for GPI 2.0 as mentioned above, and has also been recognized for future space coronagraphic missions.

• M.Tech., Honors, Astronomy & Astrophysics (July 2008 - September 2010)
  Université de Paris XI Sud and Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, France
  Domain: Astronomical & Space-based System Engineering
  Thesis Advisors: Dr. Guy Perrin (LESIA), Dr. Yutaka Hayano (Subaru Telescope)

• B.Tech., First Division, Information Technology (July 2004 - May 2008)
  College of Engineering Roorkee, Uttar Pradesh Technical University, India

Peer-reviewed articles (first author)

• “Revealing asymmetrical dust distribution in the inner regions of HD 141569”, G. Singh, T. Bhowmik, A. Boccaletti, P. Thébault, Q. Kral, J. Milli, J. Mazoyer, E. Pantin, R. G. van Holstein, J. Olofsson et al. (36 more) , 2021, A&A, 653, A79.
  

• “Active minimization of non-common path aberrations in long-exposure imaging of exoplanetary systems”, Singh, G., Galicher, R., Baudoz, P., Dupuis, O., Ortiz, M., Potier, A., Thijs, S., Huby, E., 2019, A&A, 631, A106.
  

• “A demonstration of a versatile low-order wavefront sensor tested on multiple coronagraphs”, Singh, G., Lozi, J., Jovanovic, N., Guyon, O., Baudoz, P., Kudo, T., Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2017, Vol. 129, Number 979.
  

• “On-sky demonstration of low-order wavefront sensing and control with focal plane phase mask coronagraphs”, Singh, G., Lozi, J., Guyon, O., Baudoz, P., Jovanovic N., Martinache, F., Kudo, T.,Serabyn, E., & Kuhn, J., Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2015, Volume 127, issue 955, pp.857-869.
  

• “Lyot-based low-order wavefront sensor for phase mask coronagraphs: Principle, Simulations and Laboratory Experiments”, Singh, G., Martinache, F., Baudoz, P., Guyon, O., Matsuo, T., Jovanovic N., Clergeon, C., Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, June 2014, vol. 126, pp. 586-594.
  

• ADS link to other refereed publications.
• ADS link to Conference Proceedings.
• Alternatively, ORCID profie.

Community Work

Reviewer

• 2019 & 2020 FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology) Astrophysics proposals.
• Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (JATIS).

Invited lecture

Wavefront sensing and reconstruction, August 20th, 2019 and August 17th, 2021.
Center for Adaptive Optics summer school (CfAO), University of California, Santa Cruz

Professional services

• International Astronomical Union (IAU) junior member.
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Alumni Association Member (France & India).
• Volunteer mentor at The Supernova Foundation providing career guidance to women.
• An organizer of the NYRIA workshop.

Youtube links to invited outreach talks

National Space Society USA-Mumbai chapter, January 2021: How to image Exoplanets?
Star party, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, April 2022: Direct Imaging of Exopalnets

Full CV as of February 2022.