Personal

 I was born and raised in coimbatore, a small city in south India. My Dad Gandhiraman was always an inspiration and I love my affectionate family. Since 2012, I have been living in silicon valley with my wife and 2 kids. Before moving to US, I spent about 10 years in Europe (Ireland and Finland). My interests are meditation, yoga, keeping up with mental and physical health, visiting animal sanctuaries, hiking, sky watching, history of science etc.,

                                                  My favourite place in my hometown "Marudhamalai"  with my wife Nandini Aithal and our children Kabir and Bavani Gandhiraman

 Universe is neither benign nor hostile but merely indifferent to the concerns of creatures like us - Carl Sagan. A personality who I love and admire is Carl Sagan. His TV series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" is my all time best science program.

                                                                                                               Carl Sagan                                                                       Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty

 My journey!!!!!

I am happy for what I am today and I thank many faculty members and friends from my almae matres. One of the most memorable events was meeting with Prof. V. Balu, the then Director of Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC), Ooty during his visit to Coimbatore Institute of Technology(CIT) when I was in the second year of my bachelors degree(1998). I met him after his talk, he invited me to RAC and offered free accommodation and access to library.  My classmate Balaji & I visited RAC for couple of days. Having seen those gigantic radio telescopes, I wanted to build a little telescope. The easiest choice was optical telescope. I then met Prof. Sakthivel, Head of Astronomy association in PSG College of Technology and he offered to guide me in the project. I learnt manual mirror grinding and polishing technique from Prof. Devadoss, a well known astronomer from Chennai and came back to set up the mirror  grinding & polishing facility at PSG Tech Astronomy association.  We finally constructed a 4inch reflector telescope for our final year project. I then joined M.Sc.,Materials Science in P.S.G.College of Technology. Thanks to Prof. Sakthivel for organizing regular sky watching events during my stay at PSG Tech and encouraging me in astronomy and skywatching. My first meteor shower watch from a nearby hilly area with Prof Sakthivel and a friend of mine was truly memorable. We spent the entire night scanning the dark sky and watching meteor shower. NASA always remained a source of inspiration and a dream place to visit.

As i received a PhD fellowship  from Prof. David Cameron in Dublin City University, I moved to Ireland in Oct 2002. In such a cold, cloudy weather of Ireland sky watching was difficult. I joined Dublin Astronomical Association and used to attend the lectures. The cold winter discouraged me.....my interest in astronomy and wish to visit NASA was beginning to fade...I enjoyed my research at Dublin working with Prof. David Cameron, Dr. Stephen Daniels, Mr. Billy Roarty and Prof. David Williams. When I visited Washington, DC for Society for Vacuum Coaters conference in 2006, I visited the NASA exhibition. I didn't realize that the distant dream would materialize in future. When the international travel fellowship advertisement from Science Foundation Ireland was out in 2011, all of a sudden my subconscious mind woke up to dream NASA again!!!.  After all the administrative difficulties  I finally made it to NASA Ames Research Center in the silicon valley in Apr 2012.  

I worked at Universities Space Research Association and NASA Ames Research Center, for 5 years and then started my own company "Space Foundry Inc.," jointly with my long term collaborator Dr. Dennis Nordlund from Stanford. Space Foundry has received multiple small business innovation research awards from NASA and developing technologies for NASA's future space mission.