Rahul Jain is a 3rd-year physics grad student at MSU. His research is in the field of experimental nuclear astrophysics focused on understanding the properties of accreting neutron star crusts. They do so by performing and studying the very nuclear reactions that take place in those extreme environments in the laboratory involving very exotic neutron-rich isotopes.
Along with physics, he is also pursuing a dual Ph.D. with the Computational Mathematics Science and Engineering (CMSE) department. Since we cannot study all the several thousands of isotopes in the laboratory due to technological limitations as well as limited  resources, he is trying to apply modern machine learning techniques to reliably extrapolate the available experimental nuclear data for astrophysics simulations.
Outside of physics, he is an (almost) professional squash player. He played for his college team and represented his home state once in the Indian National Squash Championships in 2015. Rahul is the mentoring co-chair for WaMPS and the student representative for the PA colloquium committee. He is also the student member on the steering committee for the International Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA).
During the episode, we talk about the MSU Office for International Students and Scholars. More information can be found at https://oiss.isp.msu.edu/
To keep up to date with WaMPS updates, you can follow @msuwamps on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. If you would like to learn more about graduate school in physics and astronomy at MSU, check out their website here.
If you would like to leave comments, questions, or recommend someone to be interviewed on Journeys of Scientists, you can email WaMPS outreach coordinator Bryan at stanl142@msu.edu