The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) has announced its 2025 class of fellows, and among the 24 new members is Viraj Karambelkar, an Indian-origin astrophysicist.
The highly competitive fellowship, which received over 650 applications this year, is designed to support early-career astrophysicists who have shown exceptional promise and innovation in their research. The fellowship offers up to three years of support at a US institution and aims to foster leadership in the field of astrophysics.
The NHFP is divided into three sub-categories, each corresponding to a major scientific question that NASA is exploring: “How does the universe work?” (Einstein Fellows), “How did we get here?” (Hubble Fellows), and “Are we alone?” (Sagan Fellows).
Karambelkar was selected as a Hubble Fellow, which is given to those working to understand the origins and evolution of the universe.
Karambelkar, who grew up in Pune, India, has had a distinguished academic journey. He completed his bachelor’s degree in engineering physics and mathematics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2019.
Currently, he is a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working under the mentorship of Mansi Kasliwal. He is set to complete his PhD in 2025.
His research focuses on understanding stellar mergers, specifically the collision and fusion of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and other celestial objects. By studying these cosmic events, Karambelkar hopes to gain deeper insights into stellar processes, gravitational waves, and cosmic dust.
His work involves using optical and infrared surveys to look for the explosive and variable outcomes of these mergers, with the aim of gaining new information about the universe.
Karambelkar has also made significant contributions to the field by developing a detection pipeline for the Wide-Field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER) surveyor at Palomar Observatory. He has led observing programs with two of the most advanced telescopes in space—the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.
As a Hubble Fellow, Karambelkar’s work will expand the understanding of stellar mergers by using data from new upcoming surveys. These include the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, NASA’s SPHEREx mission, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. By studying stellar mergers in greater detail, he hopes to improve knowledge of binary star evolution, particularly how these systems give rise to gravitational wave sources, and how these mergers contribute to cosmic dust.
