I was born and brought up in Sonepur (Subarnapur), western Odisha, India. Education: Adarsha UGME School (Estd. 1921), M R High School (Estd. 1913), Sonepur College (Estd 1964). Sambalpur University (Estd. 1967). I got my Ph.D.  (Physics (Astronomy & Astrophysics)) from Joint Astronomy Programme of the Indian Institute of Science  (IISc; Bengaluru) & National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR; Pune), India in 2007. After my 5 years postdoctoral research in Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA; Taiwan), I was invited to join UM-DAE CEBS in Dec 2012. I was promoted to Reader-F in August 2013 through an international expert review (for a Regular Faculty position) which has the approval from the Governing Council of UM-DAE CEBS.

Since June 2014, I am University Grant Commission (UGC) Assistant Professor in UM-DAE CEBS as CEBS authorities requested UGC to re-appoint me and two others in UM-DAE CEBS. This UGC position is a Regular faculty position created by mission Faculty Recharge Programme of UGC-Ministry of Human Resource Development (now DEpt of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Govt of India). UGC provides me monthly-salary and start-up-grant which has helped establish my Nationwide Inter-University Citizen Science Research startup named [email protected] Astronomy Collaboratory, India ( #RADatHomeIndia ), as presented in my UGC job interview and as per UGC service condition.

I am a Member of the Principal Scientific Adviser’s Consultative Group to advise the Govt of India on various matters of policy relating to science and society (I am coordinator of astronomy sub-group).

I have received the Best PhD Thesis award in the year 2007 from the Astronomical Society of India. I am one of the three, who has been awarded "Samanta Chandrasekhar Jyotirbigyani Sanman" by SCAAA at IOP, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India Ref: https://goo.gl/PYjV97

Felicitated by Honorable Chief Minister, Govt of  Odisha (Shri Naveen Patanaik) for my astronomical discoveries and my role as founding Director and Principal Investigator of [email protected] for citizen-science research with the GMRT. Reference https://goo.gl/2gdC3e

For the same reason, I have been felicitated by the Director of Indian Institute for Science Education and Research (IISER, Kolkata), on 17th Aug 2019, in front of a gathering of ~130 students/scientists.

Similarly I have been felicitated by  Director, IISER-Berhampur for my leadership and contributions to Citizen Science Research in India in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. This was during an ODRAW with 155 participants on 19th Oct. 2019

Elected Member of The International Astronomical Union (IAU, Paris), My [email protected] fits their mandate of Office of Astronomy for Development and the global activity #Astro4Dev and #AstroAtHome www.iau.org

I am an Associate member of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), Extragalactic Continuum (galaxies/AGN, galaxy clusters) working group. SKA, head-quartered in UK, is an international observatory with India as a partner country (Mega-project of India funded through DAE & DST). This will be the world’s largest radio telescope to explore the Universe.

Reviewer/referee for Time Allocation Committees of GMRT, ASTROSAT, DOT telescopes and for international journals MNRAS (Letter), A&A with impact factors 5.231 and 6.209, respectively.

PI of successful research proposals in GMRT, VLA, XMM-Newton, ASTROSAT, SMA, ALMA, Subaru, CFHT, KISO, HCT, Lulin …

Research Publications:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=paxEpRcAAAAJ&hl=en

Total citations= 483, h-index=13

*** International Press Releases and news on three of my Discoveries (Exotic galaxy Speca, Cosmic Leaf-blower galaxy, A blue supergiant star the farthest star (Each of these 3 news created nearly 3 Lakhs Google hits))

1. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/news/galex20120403.html

2. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=121556

3. http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/ncra/outreach/press-releases/gmrt-discovers-an-exotic-galaxy-revealing-tantalizing-tale

4. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2111311,00.html

5. http://www.naoj.org/Pressrelease/2013/04/10/index.html

[email protected], India (www.radathomeindia.org) is the first Indian Citizen-science Research project in astronomy since 15th April 2013. It is a zero-funded zero-infrastructure nation-wide inter-university collaboratory of 150+ trained citizen-scientists or e-astronomers and a dozen professional astronomers. Over thousand citizens have been trained on the basic multi-wavelength extragalactic astronomy ( #RGBviaNASAnRADatHomeIndia ) by the Collaboratory. We always welcome external cash/kind/moral support from any individual/institution, both Govt/Pvt, for our citizen-science research with the GMRT telescope, the largest such in the world, and pride of the nation. RAD has received institutional (infrastructural/financial) support from Vigyan Samagam (SKA-India Consortium, DAE, DST, NCSM, Govt of India), ICTS-TIFR, IOP, IISc, HRI, NISER, UM-DAE CEBS, Nehru Planetarium (Delhi), Vigyan Prasar (DST), IISER (Kolkata & Berhampur), IIT-BHU (Varanasi), St. Stephens College (Delhi University), Govt of Odisha, Tata Steel, SCAAA, SKA-India Consortium, GTAC (GMRT/NCRA-TIFR), NIAS, University Faculty Association (India) etc.  New Science, Technology & Innovation policy of the DST, Govt of India now promote citizen science. Our Motto: Any BSc/BE Can Do research using GMRT sitting at home anywhere in India by joining [email protected] free of cost.  #ABCDresearch #RADatHomeIndia #DilyGalaxyRGBC #DilSeDiscovery    
The Internationally Published conference paper (Hota et al. 2014) and Refereed Journal Paper (Hota et al. 2016)  are available through NASA ADS here

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016JApA...37...41H/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ASInC..13..141H/abstract

Press/News release from ISW, Vigyan Prasar, DST, Govt. of India on [email protected] is here http://vigyanprasar.gov.in/isw/inspired_bollywood_flick_power_facebook_indian_scientist_builds_army_e-astronomers_story.html

Nature Index has chosen [email protected], 1 of 3 globally, and highlighted in an article on citizen science research. This was also highlighted by the international SKA Observatory (UK) in their magazine Contact. The article is available here go.nature.com/2ZJraif

SKA & IAU: Square Kilometre Array (SKA) international organisation (UK) and International Astronomical Union (Paris) have given public declarations for students/citizens to join [email protected] SKA listed [email protected] as one of the seven radio astronomy citizen science research programmes in the world and IAU listed RAD as one of 20 astronomy programmes globally.
https://www.skatelescope.org/outreachandeducation/outreach-resources/citizen-science/ 
https://www.iau.org/public/callforonlineresources/

The Brochure of [email protected] can be found here https://goo.gl/bVrb8w

Some of my other initiatives........
NIISS: https://www.facebook.com/NIISScollaborationIndia

QASTRO: . https://www.facebook.com/QastroSKAindia/

SARP:  https://www.facebook.com/SARPatCEBS/   http://goo.gl/VYLM2t

#eAstroLab:   https://goo.gl/qMpSmP

S3N3_India: https://www.facebook.com/S3N3.India/

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