Graduating Student Spotlight: Shambhavi Srivastava, winner of the Outstanding Senior Award for the College of Science
Shambhavi Srivastava graduates this year with her Bachelor’s of Science in Astronomy and Mathematics.
As Shambhavi Srivastava prepares to graduate with her Astronomy degree, she reflects on highlights from her time at Steward Observatory. Read her full interview below.
What brought you to astronomy, and to Steward Observatory?
As a clueless student, I was reading interviews of NASA scientists to get to know what, how and what path to take to become one. I guess I was in the geologist or similar category and I saw a lot of 'LPL' and 'University of Arizona' so I just opened the application for transfer and applied to University of Arizona. I had to choose a major in the application, so I opened the list which was in alphabetical order, saw 'astronomy.' That's how I landed up here!
Can you describe your research and any especially interesting learning experiences you’ve had during your time here?
My research with Dr. Kathryne Daniel is on radial migration in spiral galaxies focusing on the constraint pitch angle. I worked with tracer particle simulations to check how such wrapping co-rotating spirals with winding patterns differ from the solid-body or density wave spirals having consistent pattern speeds. This estimated RMS changes in azimuthal and radial angular momentum components for particles in the vicinity of the corotation radius and found that co-rotating spirals have higher values of RMS (azimuthal angular momentum) than the solid-body spirals, particularly at larger values of the pitch angle, while the RMS (radial angular momentum) remained largely unaffected. These findings on the dynamical aspects of spiral galaxies form part of a more general investigation into the variation in pitch angles which will be discussed in a subsequent publication.
What's your greatest point of pride from your time at Steward?
Honestly, all the outreach opportunities I got through Sky School which introduced me operating telescopes and just exploring Mt. Lemmon. I made many trips to Mt. Lemmon for this, what a thrill!
Can you share piece of wisdom from your time as an astronomy student?
Try to get out of your comfort zone. Keep trying new things, be it your interests in astronomy or any other hobbies.
What’s next?
I want to go to graduate school in astronomy.
We’re excited to celebrate our students who are graduating this semester. Stayed tuned for more Spotlight profiles on Steward Observatory graduates, and follow our social media channels for more insight into the lives of our students, staff and faculty.