Student Impact: Meet Tanmay Gupta
Student Impact: Meet Tanmay Gupta
Caltech Graduate Joins NASA Team as Software-Hardware Integration Intern
Tanmay Gupta, an aspiring astronomer and recent graduate in Physics and Aerospace Engineering at Caltech, develops algorithms at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to provide new information about stellar feedback in the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Growing up in Malaysia, Tanmay Gupta (BS '24) dreamed of working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Now, as a Software-Hardware Integration Intern at JPL, he works on the Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths (ASTHROS) mission—the first of its kind to conduct high spectral resolution spectrology enabling astronomers to create 3D maps of star-forming regions.
As an undergraduate at Caltech, Tanmay received funding for the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, where he collaborated with JPL and Caltech faculty to study cosmic star formation. Engaged in hands-on lab work, theory, and coding, Tanmay developed Hyperspectral Kinetic Inductance Detectors for the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)—the world's largest single-dish steerable millimeter-wavelength telescope in Mexico—and the Terahertz Intensity Mapper (TIM) telescope—a balloon-borne imaging spectrometer. In addition, he constructed a prototype water-heat exchange system to keep the on-chip spectrometer on the LMT telescope, or SuperSpec, at the right temperature.
After completing the SURF fellowship, Tanmay went on to invent a modular Electrodynamic Shielding solution to mitigate lunar dust while at Caltech, which won Best Product Development for the NASA Big Idea Challenge Team and was awarded a $180,000 research grant to aid NASA Artemis missions. The following year, he received the Caltech Inaugural Ginsburg Scholarship, an annual award to one or more juniors with academic excellence and outstanding leadership skills.
Without the initial support of donors through the SURF program, Tanmay would not have been able to achieve such outstanding contributions to aerospace engineering. But for Tanmay—like many Caltech students and graduates—this is just the beginning. He is grateful to donors who helped him achieve his dream and provided him with scholarship aid to make it possible for him to pursue a degree at Caltech.
By providing students like Tanmay with scholarship aid, donors give them access to opportunities that exist only at Caltech, preparing them to engage in science and engineering at the highest levels. Tanmay looks forward to continuing to advance his career at JPL and working at the intersection of scientific research and engineering design within the aerospace industry.
Support other students like Tanmay today by making an online gift through the Caltech Fund.