I was born and brought up in Sonepur (Subarnapur), western Odisha, India. Education: Adarsha UGME School, M R High School, Sonepur College. Sambalpur University. 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 joined 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 Ministry of Higher Education, Govt of India). UGC provides me monthly salary and start-up-grant which has helped establish my Nationwide Inter-University Citizen Science Research ( #RADatHomeIndia ) using GMRT, as presented in my job interview(s).

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).

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] Astronomy Collaboratyry (India) 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= 470, h-index=12

*** 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 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.  Motto: Any BSc/BE Can Do research using GMRT sitting at home anywhere in India by joining [email protected] free of cost.  #ABCDresearch #RADatHomeIndia  
The Internationally Published Refereed Journal Paper (Hota et al. 2016) and conference paper (Hota et al. 2014) 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 six 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

NIISS: I lead the NIISS collaboration (India) which stands for Nationwide Inter-University Interdisciplinary Scientists for Society. It is a collaboration of 60+ young scientists from all over India.  Along with the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt of India the collaboration is aiming at working for introducing "Disruptive Educational Technologies" into our static education system.

QASTRO: Conceived, designed and coordinated almost single-handedly QASTRO: GMRT image contest of SKA-week programme in Vigyan Samagam (DAE, DST, NCSM (Govt. of India)) in all four cities Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and finally Delhi. https://www.facebook.com/QastroSKAindia/

SARP: Conceived, designed and coordinated almost single-handedly Summer Associate Research Programme (SARP) of UM-DAE CEBS for 4 years. Out of 700 applicants, 50 have been selected and got experience in research. It encourages participation from remote Universities and underdeveloped regions of India. https://www.facebook.com/SARPatCEBS/  Students name and other project details of #SARPatCEBS are listed at http://goo.gl/VYLM2t

#eAstroLab: A brief note on my UGC-funded #eAstroLab @ UM-DAE CEBS is available here. We also plan to build an ASTRO observatory and CEBS Radio Telescope System when the requested DAE-funding and human resource support is arrives  https://goo.gl/qMpSmP

S3N3_India: Co-founder of a popular science outreach Page in social media with ~13 thousand Like/subscribers from all over India. This can be compared, though of different nature, to Facebook Likes of Vigyan Samagam (14k), Vigyan Prasar (8.5k), Chai and Why-TIFR (8.7k), ICTS-KwK (11k), India Science Wire (11k), Science reporter magazine (24k)...
https://www.facebook.com/S3N3.India/

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