You can call me Satheesh, or Dr. S if you insist! Or, if you are angry at me and want to call me by my full name, it is Veerahanumakkanapalya Honnappa Satheeshkumar. The first name is actually the name of the place of my birth, the second name is the first name of my father, and the last name is my given name! It is an old naming convention similar to that of some names you might recognize: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar or Srinivasa Ramanujan, although they do not have the name of their birthplaces. If you already noticed that my name has 42 letters, perhaps you know the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything!
Since 2019, I am a tenured faculty member at the Department of Physics, the Federal University of State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Brazil. Before this, I was a postdoc at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) [2015-2019] with a short stint at National Observatory in Rio de Janeiro.Â
Before moving to Brazil, I went to graduate school at Baylor University [2009-2015], in Waco, Texas, United States, where I worked with Professor Anzong Wang. And before that, I studied in India at the University of Mysore, Osmania University, and the University of Hyderabad where I got my BSc (Physics, Mathematics & Computer Science), MSc (Astronomy), and MPhil (Physics) respectively. While in my final year of undergraduate, I had an admission offer to study Mathematical Tripos III at the University of Cambridge, UK (as a member of Hughes Hall). But, I ended up not going there. I have spent summers at the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in 2004 under Vacation Students Programme working with Professor Naresh K Dadhich; and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in 2008 on Summer Research Fellowship working with Professor Romesh K Kaul.
Here is my academic tree traced back to seven generations.