LIGO Outreach Program for High Schoolers

Grade 11 student, Yash, is currently working on an outreach program together with LIGO – a collaboration between the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, operated by Caltech and MIT, and three Institutes in India to inspire and enable the future generation of scientists.

The aim of the program is to inspire the next wave of physicists, and provide resources to enable students in high school to delve deeper into the field. Although being proud of the research Yash has been doing so far, he believes it is less meaningful if it cannot inspire fellow students all over India to achieve the impossible. Yash explains: “For the last two years, I have been working intensively on progressing the field of gravitational physics, and through this relentless pursuit, I am honoured to be able to work with some of the most esteemed professors from some of the top universities in the world, for example Caltech, MIT and Stanford”.

The 12 months pilot program will start in October 2020, and take place online and on different platforms. The events will be in the shape of webinars, workshops, research opportunities with top professors, and opportunities to take courses with graduate students. Links will be shared in the future, where students can join the events.

As part of plans for the future, Yash hopes to partner up with ‘Pratham’, one of India's largest Education NGO and ‘Vidyakul’, an online educational platform, to possibly reach millions of socially and economically disadvantaged students currently under-represented in the areas of physics research.