About the Team

Director

Dr. Karan Jani is an assistant professor of Physics & Astronomy and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He is the founding director of the Vanderbilt Lunar Labs Initiative and holds the endowed position of Cornelius Vanderbilt Dean’s Faculty. Karan’s research is at the forefront of understanding black holes and testing Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity with gravitational-wave detectors on the Earth, Moon, and space.

Karan earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics and Astronomy-Astrophysics, with a minor in Mathematics, from Pennsylvania State University.

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Robert Reed, Core Faculty

Dr. Robert Reed is a Professor of Electrical Engineering, Associate Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the principal investigator of the Vanderbilt Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE) Radiation Effects Core.

Robert’s research experience includes forward-looking research and development associated with the physics of failure of electronic and photonic devices and integrated circuits when exposed to man-made, space, and terrestrial radiation environments; developing new approaches for survivability testing of electronics and photonics; and lead radiation effects engineer for various NASA missions including Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). His work has significantly impacted the design, qualification, and verification of various commercial and radiation-hardened ICs when operated in various radiation environments.

James Trippe, Core Faculty

Dr. James Trippe is a Research Associate Professor at the Vanderbilt Institute for Space Defense & Electronics. He has 12 years of experience in the field of radiation effects, primarily on microelectronics and interactions of radiation with matter.

David Wright, Core Faculty

Dr. David Wright is a professor of Chemistry and the Director of Vanderbilt's Communication of Science and Technology program.

Gabor Karsai, Faculty

Dr. Gabor Karsai is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Software-Integrated Systems. He is an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Gabor has over thirty years of experience in research on systems and software engineering and conducts research in the model-based design and implementation of cyber-physical systems. He has worked on several large projects in the past, including one on fault-adaptive control technology that is used in aerospace applications, and on an information architecture platform for managed distributed real-time embedded software for fractionated spacecraft. More recently, he has worked on the assurance-driven development of cyber-physical systems with learning-enabled (AI) software components.

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Michael Alles, Faculty

Dr. Michael Alles is a Research Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and the Acting Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE). Prior to returning to Vanderbilt, he spent 12 years in the semiconductor industry working in silicon-in-insulator (SOI) technology development, manufacturing, metrology, computer aided design tools for semiconductor fabrication processes, semiconductor device physics, and integrated circuit design.

His current research focuses on the application of advanced and emerging semiconductor technologies in radiation environments, and modeling and simulation of radiation effects in semiconductor devices and circuits. Dr. Alles currently leads the Radiation-Hardened Microelectronics Technical Vertical of the multi-university SCALE Workforce Development Program. He is a member of IEEE EDS and NPSS and has over 250 publications and 2 patents.

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Bill Smith, Faculty

Bill Smith is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Fisk University, where he currently teaches undergraduate and master's courses in physics and astrophysics. He began this position in 2026 after completing his graduate studies in the Astrophysics Program at Vanderbilt University. His research includes conducting analyses for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration’s cosmology group, using gravitational wave observations and hydrodynamic simulations to better understand the universe’s origins and evolution, and developing the cosmology science case for the LILA detector. Besides doing science, Bill loves thinking about people, societies, and cultures, doing science, and how to make the scientific community more inclusive, equitable, supportive, and communal - which he does through his involvement as a founder of Nashville's Astronomy on Tap, Former President of Vanderbilt's Graduate Student Council, organizer for ComSciCon, and administrator for Astrobites.

Anjali Yelikar, Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Anjali Yelikar is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Physics & Astronomy group at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on understanding gravitational wave signals from colliding black holes and/or neutron stars observed by detectors such as LIGO, LISA, and LILA.

Chayan Chatterjee, Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Chayan Chatterjee is the A.I. for New Messengers Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University, USA, a position jointly offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Data Science Institute at Vanderbilt University. He obtained his PhD in Physics from The University of Western Australia in 2023, where he worked on developing deep learning models for rapid detection and sky localization of gravitational wave sources. His current research focuses on developing foundational AI for gravitational wave astronomy from both individual and populations of sources.

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Krystal Ruiz-Rocha, Post-doctoral fellow

Dr. Krystal Ruiz-Rocha is a recent PhD graduate from the Astronomy department at Vanderbilt research. She joined the EMIT program at Fisk University as a post-doctoral fellow upon graduation. Her research combines cosmological simulations, population models, parameter estimation, and gravitational-wave observations to study the black hole populations of stellar-mass and intermediate mass black hole binaries detected in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA and LISA gravitational wave detectors.

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Suyash Deshmukh, Graduate Student

Suyash Deshmukh is a second year graduate student in the Physics & Astronomy department at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on applying advanced machine learning techniques to gravitational wave data analysis for complex signal regimes such as Intermediate Mass Black Hole (IMBH) binaries.

Nicholas-Tyler Howard, Graduate Student

Nicholas-Tyler Howard does Gravitational Wave (GW) detector glitch and GW signal reconstruction using AI computer vision models.

Ryan Nowicki, Graduate Student

Ryan Nowicki is a Ph.D. Candidate in Astrophysics at Vanderbilt University, currently advised by Dr. Karan Jani. Her research focuses on understanding the origins of intermediate-mass black holes and on modeling the gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes using numerical simulations.

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