Paras Koundal is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware, where he currently works on studying the composition of cosmic rays—energetic charged particles constantly bombarding the atmosphere—which are the source of 99.9999% of the events IceCube measures. In addition to the immensely interesting physics, Paras enjoys the ability to learn about and work on new data analysis methods. “This process has taught me not just physics,” Paras says, “but also technical knowledge that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. My research lets me study things from other areas and implement them in physics.”
For Paras, this intense desire to learn and do science goes back years. In high school, he won the NSS Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest twice. In his undergraduate and early graduate career, he worked on neutrino physics, but outside of a collaboration. This eventually led to him joining IceCube at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. One of the key reasons for moving to IceCube was because “I felt like there was no support system [prior to working on IceCube], but I feel like IceCube has a very nice support system.”
“Surround yourself with people who are kind and helpful.”
Paras Koundal
Such support systems are important for the inevitable obstacles you encounter when pursuing science. Paras recounts how “in graduate school, I failed my thermodynamics course, which was the first time I failed a course. That taught me that you will inevitably encounter failures. What’s important is how you bounce back. Tomorrow will be better. Surround yourself with people who are kind and helpful.”
When not doing science, Paras enjoys writing Shayari [short form poetry] as well as cooking and sketching. His experiences at KIT have stuck with him, in part through a cookbook of handwritten recipes put together by his colleagues at KIT.
Paras can be found on most social media platforms under the username “paraskoundal” as well as on his website: “paraskoundal.com”