Headshot of Akshatha Vydula

Akshatha Vydula

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Curriculum Vitae

  • Profile

    Akshatha Vydula is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physics. Her research focuses on the early Universe, particularly the formation of the first stars and galaxies. More generally, she is interested in developing tools for calibration and analysis of data from low-frequency radio telescopes. She is a member of the EDGES collaboration, the only experiment to have reported a detection of the redshifted 21cm signal from cosmic dawn. She leads the blind analysis for the next-generation EDGES experiment, developing and validating edges-analysis, an open-source framework to unify datasets from global 21cm experiments. Her work spans multiple fronts, including the first spectral modeling of low-frequency galactic radio recombination lines, as well as space-based measurements of the neutron lifetime using archival Lunar Prospector data. Beyond cosmology, she has collaborated with scientists at the VLA and LWA to advance antenna beam characterization methods for low-frequency radio telescopes. At U of R, she is working with Prof. Jack Singal to produce an absolutely calibrated sky map at 310 MHz using the Green Bank Telescope, the largest steerable radio dish, located in West Virginia.

    Passionate about science equity and communication, she is committed to expanding access to astronomy for underserved communities. She founded an astrophysics club at RV College of Engineering in India, where she continues to advise students on research and outreach. At ASU, she organized journal clubs, engineering-focused coffee talks, community open houses, and mentoring through the Sundial program, and also delivered numerous public talks across India and the United States. For her contributions to astrophysics and science communication, she was recently honored with the Bharat Gaurav Puraskar and recognized as one of the 35 Under 35 Non-Resident Indians by the Bharat Vikas Foundation.

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    • Grants and Fellowships

      Graduate Student Government travel award, 2024-2025 academic year

      ComSciCon 2024 Fellow, offered to 50 out of 800-1200 applicants each year (travel award to attend the Annual Flagship workshop in Boston, MA)

      National Academies 2025 Travel Fellowship Award to attend the NRSM-URSI Meeting in Boulder, CO

    • Awards

      2025 Bharat Gaurav Puraskar (35 under 35 NRI Achievers), presented by Department of Education, Govt. of India.

      2025 ASU Graduate Academic Excellence Award

    • Presentations

      INVITED TALKS

      Experimental Frontiers in 21cm Cosmology and Radio Synchrotron Background Studies
      New Avenues in Particle Cosmology, Winchester, UK (May 20, 2025)

      Radio Astronomy techniques to measure the Global 21cm signal from the early Universe
      Karnataka Physics Teachers Association (Nov 24, 2024)

      Space Archaeology: Studying the early Universe using remote radio telescopes
      San Jose Astronomy Association (Oct 19, 2024)

      A Day in a Life of a Radio Astronomer
      RV College of Engineering (Oct 15, 2024)

      Studying Cosmic Dawn using remote Radio Telescopes
      Gulbarga Science Center, India (Oct 8, 2024)

      Low Frequency Radio Recombination Lines with EDGES
      LuSEE-Night Seminar, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY (Nov 9, 2023)

      Space Archaeology: Using 21cm signal to study the early Universe
      Annular Solar Eclipse 2023 County Science Outreach, Kanab, Utah (Oct 14, 2023)

      Using MCNP to measure the Neutron Lifetime in Planetary Environment
      MCNP User Symposium, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Oct 20, 2022)

      Studying Early Universe as an Engineer turned Radio Astronomer
      Cosmic Chronicles Talk Series, RV College of Engineering, India (Sep 6, 2022)

      Studying Early Universe using Low Frequency Radio Telescopes
      Grad-to-Grad Colloquium, Dept. of Physics, ASU (Apr 29, 2022)

      Transition from Engineering to Astrophysics
      National Space Society-USA, Mumbai (Jan 24, 2022)

      TALKS

      Validation of EDGES software suite using 10 days of EDGES-3 data
      National Radio Science Meeting, Boulder, CO (Jan 2025)

      Progress on EDGES-3 Data Analysis
      7th Global 21cm Workshop, Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru (Oct 2024)

      Low Frequency Science: Radio Recombination Lines and Beam Holography
      Caltech Lunch Seminar (Jul 9, 2024)

      Beam Mapping of VLA 4-band using Dish Holography
      SESE Annual Symposium (Aug 2023)

      Beam Mapping of LWA using Pulsar Holography
      38th Annual New Mexico Symposium (Feb 2023)

      Low-Frequency Radio Recombination Lines Away From the Inner Galactic Plane
      241st AAS Winter Meeting, Seattle, WA (Jan 2023)

      Low-Frequency Radio Recombination Lines using EDGES
      5th Global 21cm Workshop, UC Berkeley (Oct 2022)

      Effects of Surface Temperature and Compositions on the Measurement of Neutron Lifetime
      Space Science and Applications (ISR-1) Seminar, LANL (Jul 19, 2022)

      Measurement of Neutron Lifetime using Space-Based Neutron Spectrometer
      LANL Summer Symposium (Aug 3–4, 2021)

      Measurement of Neutron Lifetime using Space-Based Neutron Spectrometer
      SESE Annual Symposium (Aug 18, 2021)

  • Publications
    Journal Articles

    Vydula, A.K., Bowman, J.D., Lewis, D., Crawford, K., Kolopanis, M., Rogers, A.E., Murray, S.G., Mahesh, N., Monsalve, R.A., Sims, P. and Samson, T., 2023. Low-frequency Radio Recombination Lines Away from the Inner Galactic Plane.The Astronomical Journal, 167(1), p.2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad08ba

    Vydula, A.K., Coupland, D., Mesick, K. and Hardgrove, C., 2025. Systematic uncertainties in the measurement of the neutron lifetime using the Lunar Prospector neutron spectrometer.Physical Review C, 112(1), p.015807. https://doi.org/10.1103/q8jf-dc9b

    Sims, P. H., Bowman, J. D., Mahesh, N., Murray, S. G., Barrett, J. P., Cappallo, R., Vydula, A. K. (2022). A Bayesian approach to modelling spectrometer data chromaticity corrected using beam factors–I. Mathematical formalism. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad610

    Murray, S.G., Bowman, J.D., Sims, P.H., Mahesh, N., Rogers, A.E., Monsalve, R.A., Samson, T. and Vydula, A.K., A Bayesian Calibration Framework for EDGES. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2600

    Sims, P. H., Bowman, J. D., Mahesh, N., Murray, S. G., Barrett, J. P., Cappallo, R., Vydula, A. K. A general Bayesian model-validation framework based on null-test evidence ratios, with an example application to global 21-cm cosmology (2025) https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1109

    Cappallo, R.C., Rogers, A.E., Lonsdale, C.J., Bowman, J.D., Barrett, J.P., Murray, S.G., Mahesh, N., Sims, P., Vydula, A.K., Monsalve, R.A. and Eckert, C.J., 2025. EDGES-3: Instrument Design and Commissioning. arXiv preprint https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02577

    Kosogorov, N., OVRO-LWA Collaboration, (including Vydula, A.K.), Implementing Continuous All-Sky Monitoring with the OVRO-LWA to Identify Prompt and Precursor Counterparts of Gravitational Wave Events (2025) https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/add014

    Zhang, P., OVRO-LWA Collaboration, (including Vydula, A.K.), Probing the Turbulent Corona and Heliosphere Using Radio Spectral Imaging Observation during the Solar Conjunction of Crab Nebula (2025) arXiv:2506.01632 

     

     

     

  • In the News

    Spacecast 101
    Thu., Aug. 28, 2025

    AAS Journal Author Series
    Sun., Feb. 18, 2024

    Forest Voices of India
    Tue., Oct. 3, 2023

    Engineer turned Astrophysicst - Peregrination
    Sun., Jan. 30, 2022

  • Links
    Personal Website