My research interests involve pulsars and gravitational waves. My current work is based on mitigating interstellar medium effects to detect the gravitational wave signal in pulsar timing data. Gravitational waves are predicted to exist by Einstein's general theory of relativity and have been indirectly proved to exist in the Hulse Taylor binary system (B1913+16). They are the subject of many high priority experiments whose goal is their direct detection. Complementary to interferometer based gravitational wave experiments like LIGO and LISA, pulsar timing is sensitive to nanohertz frequency gravitational waves. The change in light travel time between the earth and a pulsar due to a passing gravitational wave results in a redshift in the observed spin frequency of the pulsar. In addition to gravitational waves, other effects such as the interstellr medium (ISM) propagation and rotational irregularities can affect the observed spin frequency and thereby cause pulse time of arrival fluctuations. I am part of the North American Nanohertz Observatory of Gravitational waves (NANOGrav) that currently times over 30 pulsars.

I also work on the data analysis of Rotating radio transients (RRATs) and on applying Effective field theories to binary black holes.

These days I am looking at Arecibo data of pulsar J1713+0747, which is the best timed NANOGrav object. Check out the image below to get an idea of what the periodic spectrum of this awesome object looks like, at 1.4GHz.