Students Hugh Riley Randall and Selim Kalici are wrapping up a globe-trotting Oswego experience with an astronomical opportunity with NASA related to eclipse data.

Both double majors in physics and mathematics, with astronomy minors, they were connected with NASA research scientist Jie Gong by their mentor, Distinguished Professor Shashi Kanbur of SUNY Oswego’s Physics and Astronomy Department.

The opportunity stems from SUNY Oswego earning a National Eclipse Ballooning Project grant from NASA, which led to teaching a related course in fall 2023.

"One of the topics in this course was 'Gravity Waves,' or waves generated in the atmosphere due to sudden changes in thermodynamic conditions at a particular level," Kanbur recalled.

The NASA NEBP gravity waves expert was Gong, who was helpful but Kanbur and meteorology faculty member Katelyn Barber and wanted to learn more, so they set up a Zoom meeting.

"After we understood a bit more about the topic, I immediately thought our students could do some aspects of this," Kanbur said. "Dr. Gong said she woul dbe happy to have two part-time interns. So in order to develop a pipeline, I suggested Hugh and Selim as the two students because I knew they would do a great job and that would increase our chances of maintaining the connection to NASA. Hugh will be doing a full time internship with Dr. Gong over the summer."

Both students have published one paper in the Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society and expect to have another accepted soon into this prestigious peer-reviewed journal. They also have done multiple independent study projects with Kanbur on general relativity and advanced quantum mechanics.

But the NASA internship involves many skills they have put together during their time with SUNY Oswego.

“My part is focused on analyzing the data from last year’s annular eclipse aggregated from about 10 different schools,” Randall said. “There is a lot of organization and cleansing of data required to make them more helpful.”

“I am using a ray-tracing model to determine how the eclipse induces gravity mode waves in the atmosphere,” Kalici said. “It’s helping lay groundwork for research related to the 2023 annular eclipse and the 2024 total solar eclipse.” 

While they are part of a much larger team, the students’ connection with each other is still important, as some of the data Kalici is using will come from Randall’s analysis.

In addition to the NEBP work and NASA internship, SUNY Oswego was able to expand its eclipse-related research thanks to a Shineman Endowed Fund grant.

"We were able to fund four more students to work on aspects of the solar eclipse and develop the planetarium shows," Kanbur said. In addition, two student teams are working with faculty member Bastian Tenbergen's software engineering course "developing better computer interfaces to Dr. Gong's programs to study gravity waves," he added. "So in all, we have 18 SUNY oswego students working in some way or other with eclipse physics, 12 of these are working directly with Dr. Gong."

Outstanding mentor

Conversations with the students make clear the importance of Kanbur as a mentor who has provided opportunities across the globe, including at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany in 2022. There, they met and worked with 2012 SUNY Oswego alumnus Earl Bellinger, another former mentee of Kanbur, on research related to determining the age and scale of the universe. 

Bellinger, who has since started teaching at Yale University, will continue working with Kalici when the latter starts graduate study at Yale this fall. Bellinger also is among the distinguished speakers who will give talks on the Oswego campus the day of the April 8 total solar eclipse.

In summer 2023, Randall and Kalici performed additional research work at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, yet another location known as one of the best places for international research and scientific productivity.

“He’s given us so many opportunities,” Kalici said of Kanbur.

“Shashi has been such a tremendous advisor,” said Randall, who is still deciding among graduate programs. “He gives us all this knowledge and all of these opportunities, and he’s the reason we’re doing this project.”

They both said their Oswego experience has been marked with constantly having opportunities they never thought possible that continue to expand their horizons and point the way toward their future aspirations –- for graduate school and whatever lies beyond.

Kanbur holds a high opinion of the two students as well. 

"I can confidently say they are two of the best students I have had in my career," Kanbur said. "They are dedicated, enthusiastic and very focused."

For more information on eclipse-related activities on the SUNY Oswego campus, visit oswego.edu/eclipse.