Ananda Hota (born 1 April 1975) is an Indian astronomer, educator, and proponent of citizen-science research in astronomy. He is a University Grant Commission faculty member at the UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (CEBS), Mumbai, and the founding Director and Principal Investigator of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, a pioneering citizen-science research initiative in India.
Hota was born and raised in Sonepur (Subarnapur) in the western part of Odisha state of India. He completed his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Physics in 1995 from Sonepur College, Sambalpur University, and went on to earn an M.Sc. in Physics from Sambalpur University in 1997. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics (Astronomy & Astrophysics) in 2007 from the Joint Astronomy Programme of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in collaboration with the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, TIFR, Pune.
Career
After completing postdoctoral work (including a five-year fellowship at Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taipei) and short stints at NCRA and IUCAA, Hota joined UM-DAE CEBS in December 2012 as a faculty member.
Hota's research focuses on multi-wavelength observational studies of black hole–galaxy co-evolution, active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback, radio galaxies, and galaxy evolution.[1]
Citizen Science & RAD@home
In 2013, Hota founded RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, India's first large-scale citizen-science research platform in astronomy. The collaboratory harnesses the talents of science-educated citizens (referred to as “e-astronomers” or “i-astronomers”) across India, enabling them to contribute to research using publicly available astronomy data, including from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT).[2] Under his leadership, RAD@home has trained thousands of participants and dozens have co-authored several peer-reviewed research publications.[3] It has received support from dozens of research and educational institutions all over India to conduct its citizen science workshops (e.g. RAD@home Discovery Camp at ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru).[4][5] Recent RAD@home discovery of the farthest and most powerful Odd Radio Circle (ORC), RAD J131346.9+500320 , was the first ORC discovered through citizen science process and attracted a lot of media attention.[6][7][8][9]
Recognition
Awards: He has received the Samanta Chandrasekhar Jyotirbigyani Sanman, awarded in 2018 in recognition of his work in astronomy and science education.[10] He has also received the Best PhD Thesis award from the Astronomical Society of India in the year 2007.[11]
Selected Publications and Press Releases related to Key Discoveries
Ananda Hota et al., 2011, "Discovery of a spiral-host episodic radio galaxy" named Speca[13][14][15]
Ananda Hota et al., 2012, "NGC 3801 caught in the act: a post-merger star-forming early-type galaxy with AGN—jet feedback"[16][17][18]
Y. Ohyama & A. Hota 2013 "Discovery of a possibly single blue supergiant star in the intra-cluster region of Virgo cluster of galaxies" farthest star SDSS J1229+1122[19][20][21]
Ananda Hota et al. 2022 "RAD@home citizen science discovery of an active galactic nucleus spewing a large unipolar radio bubble on to its merging companion galaxy"[22][23][24][25]
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