Biography:
Dr. Pavithraa Sundararajan is an experimental Astrochemist, currently a NASA Postdoctoral (NPP) Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center. She was born and raised in Chennai, India. Right from the age of 10, she dreamt of becoming a space scientist. With the same enthusiasm she pursued B.Sc. and M. Sc. Physics in India and graduated with Distinction(s) and an Endowment Award in Physics in 2014.
Astronomy generally makes us ponder on stars, planets and galaxies, etc., but she is curious about the molecules building up these celestial bodies. Spectroscopy is the right tool to unravel their mysteries. Driven by her interest in spectroscopy and its application in space science, she was awarded the “Outstanding New Student Scholarship” at the National Chiao Tung University, NCTU (now called National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, NYCU), Taiwan to pursue Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Yuan-Pern Lee. There she carried out research on the High-resolution Infrared Spectroscopy of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) using Matrix Isolation technique in solid p-H2 and its implications to Interstellar Aromatic Infrared Bands (AIBs). She successfully received her Doctorate in 2020.
Further, she was awarded the coveted Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship to perform research at the Leiden Observatory where she focused on carrying out experiments to Photo-dissociate PAHs in gas phase using the ‘Instrument for Photodynamics of PAHs (i-PoP)’ with the insightful guidance Prof. Alexander Tielens. During this contract, she served as a Principal Investigator (PI) of several successful projects – (i) Infrared photodissociation (IRPD) spectroscopy of Buckybowls (bowl shaped PAHs) using 22-pole 4 K cold trap using FELion facility at FELIX in collaboration with Dr. Sandra Brünken, FELIX; (ii) Laser desorption molecular beam spectroscopy of neutral Buckybowls (far- and mid- infrared) using BUMA-1 facility at FELIX in collaboration with Dr. Piero Ferrari, FELIX and Prof. Wybren Jan Buma, University of Amsterdam; (iii) Molecular Dynamics simulation for the photodissociation of Buckybowls in collaboration with Prof. Alessandra Candian, University of Amsterdam; etc.
Dr. Sundararajan’s current research focus at the Laboratory Astrophysics group, NASA ARC is to synthesize carbonaceous grains formed from the PAHs and other small hydrocarbons under controlled experimental conditions using the COSmIC facility which will be analogs of planetary/interstellar grains. Then, she analyzes then with multiple cutting-edge facilities housed at NASA ARC, both at the Space Science and Planetary Science Divisions – including Infrared Micro-spectroscopy, Raman Micro-spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Optical Constant Facility (OCF). The objective of this multi-disciplinary research is to utilize collective data to better understand the composition of cosmic grains in comparison to space return samples.
Pavithraa's major publications can be found on the Astrochemistry Laboratory's Publications Pages.
Pavi operating the i-PoP instrument at the Leiden Observatory.
Pavi performing matrix isolation experiments at NCTU, Taiwan.
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