Kishalay De

Kishalay De’s research interests lie in the transient optical/infrared sky to search for cataclysmic explosions in the Milky Way and in distant galaxies. He obtained his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 2021, where he worked on building the largest volume-limited sample of supernovae using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey to search for faint thermonuclear and core-collapse supernovae. His work led to the identification of new classes of explosions arising from helium shell detonations on white dwarfs and the deaths of extremely stripped massive stars. De helped build the first wide-field infrared time domain survey, Gattini-IR at Palomar Observatory, that surveys three quarters of the sky every two nights. At MIT, De is leading a large project to characterize the variable mid-infrared sky using 15 years of data from the NEOWISE survey, leading to discoveries of planets being engulfed by stars, the birth of black holes from massive stars and stars being tidally ripped by supermassive black holes. These techniques will enable population-wide studies of these events using the upcoming WINTER survey, PRIME survey, the Vera Rubin observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope and the NEO-Surveyor mission.