Neelanchal Joshi

I am a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, where I study large-scale flows inside the Sun using a technique called Local Correlation Tracking. My work sits at the intersection of observational solar physics, signal processing, and big data — I spend a lot of time building pipelines to extract weak physical signals from terabytes of solar imagery, and finding new ways to push the limits of what space instruments can measure. Part of my doctoral work has also involved preparing for the ESA Vigil mission, a future space weather monitoring satellite, by characterising how well its instruments will be able to detect solar surface flows.

Before Göttingen, I completed a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and an MSc in Physics at BITS Pilani, India — a combination that has served me well for work that lives at the boundary between physics and engineering. During my masters I worked on generating solar magnetograms from historical data using deep learning, and on estimating stellar parameters from space telescope observations using Bayesian inference. During my time there, I also led the on-board computing subsystem for a student-built CubeSat under the ISRO Student Satellite Programme, where I implemented a compression algorithm on an FPGA and helped design the satellite’s telemetry interfacing architecture.

I grew up as an Army brat, moving every two years across India and never quite settling anywhere long enough to call it home. My nominal home base is Dehradun, a small city nestled on the foothills of the Himalayas — though after several years in Göttingen, the city of Gauss and Riemann might have an equally strong claim by now.

When I am not busy scratching my head about science, you can find me playing some sport or the other, doing CrossFit, hosting quizzes, following F1 closely - probably too closely - or watching any movie/series I can get my hands on :)

If you want to get in touch, you can reach me on the links below.