Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay's Webpage

• 01. HOME
• 02. ABOUT ME
• 03. ACADEMICS
• 04. CV
• 05. ASTRO
• 06. HOBBIES
• 07. CONTACT

About Me

Hi! I am Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay from INDIA. My name means seven saints, which refers to the Big Dipper constellation. No wonder I loved astronomy right from my childhood! I belong to village called Bhedia in West Bengal state, where we are the ‘zamindars’ (the lords) of the land. Although I don’t agree with any of the old Indian customs and traditions; its still feels awesome to visit our ancient palace. Every year we celebrate, one of the oldest Durga Puja’s, in our palace.

I was born on 23rd October 1987 at Durgapur, West Bengal, INIDA. At a very young age my family moved to Mumbai (Bombay, as it was known previously). Hence Mumbai is my city! I love the climate, the people and the 'never-say-die' attitude of this city. Over the years, I have witnessed the change in climate of this beautiful city and I really scared that some day this city will go down due to rising water levels and global warming. As a young kid, I studied in Fr. Agnel Multipurpose School and Junior College at Vashi. I always participated and won a large number of prizes. Having secured good results in the 10th standard board examinations, I moved to Swami Vivekandand Junior College at Chembur.

During the years of 11th and 12th standard, I prepared for the IIT JEE, which is arguably the toughest entrance test in the entire world. After securing a good JEE rank, I started pursuing Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), INIDA. I recently graduated with my BTech and MTech Degree on 8th August 2010. My specialization is Controls, Systems Engineering and research related to Space in general.

I am the Project Manager and Systems Engineer for Pratham, IITB Student Satellite Project. I initiated the project when I was in starting my third year at IITB in August 2007. After my graduation, I have deferred my other PhD offers from US, and have continued as a Research Assistant on the Pratham Project. I hope to see my Satellite in the sky soon! (Read more about my academics in my CV.)

During my 12th standard, I also represented India at the IX International Astronomy Olympiad held at Ukraine and won Gold for the country. (See more in the Astronomy Section.)

If there is something other than academics and astronomy that I like, it would be technical activities and thinking. In IITB, I got involved in technical activities right from my first week. My transformation of seemingly lifeless motors, gears, rods and pulleys into moving robots that can do useful stuff, using my own hands, enthralls me. It’s a very pure form of joy which I get out of these activities. (You can read about them in the Hobbies and Tech Section.)

The other thing that really interests me is pondering; thinking about the questions of life, the universe and everything… I shall use this space to write some of my thoughts, (something like a blog, except you cant see any comments. :P) You are free to disagree, but trust me, I have given enough thought into these topics before penning them down. Mail me if you agree/disagree with me.