Hello!

I'm a third-year undergraduate at Rutgers University studying Physics and Computer Science. My primary research interest is Martian paleomagnetism and impact processes. I also like rock climbing :)

My CV (last updated April 2023, currently out of date).

Contact me: zain.eris.kamal@rutgers.edu.

Here are summaries/links to my repositories:

RedPlanet (under heavy development / complete rewrite / data migration; but I'd be happy to help if you need a certain feature) — RedPlanet is a Python package created with the goal of making a handful of Mars geophysical datasets/analyses as accessible and convenient as possible, so you don't have to waste time finding/downloading/formatting data. Examples are heat flow/depth calculations with gamma-ray spectroscopy (GRS) data, digital elevation models up to 200m resolution (with parallelization/chunking to significantly half memory/storage use and increase accessing speed by 3-10 orders of magnitude), custom crustal thickness models (~23K options parameterized by any north/south crustal density, 16 reference interior models, and any crustal thickness at InSight), searchable crater databases, and MAVEN magnetometer data.

Mars Geophysics — Rutgers Dept. Planetary Sciences

• Investigating the depth/formation/timing of crustal magnetic sources and implications for history of the Martian dynamo via impact craters. Mentored by Professor Lujendra Ojha.

High Energy Physics, Muon Scattering — Rutgers Dept. Physics/Astronomy

• Performing analysis/software development for the MUon Scattering Experiment (MUSE) group to investigate the proton radius puzzle. My primary contribution was developing a fast calorimeter simulation framework with Generative Adversarial Networks. Mentored by Professor Ronald Gilman.

Atmospheric/Solar Physics — NJIT Dept. Solar Physics

• Analyzed cloud-radiation feedback systems during hurricanes with new BBSO Earthshine solar reflectance data. Mentored by Professor Andrew Gerrard.

Physics Simulations with VPython

• Interactive simulations of the N-body problem, Rutherford scattering, magnetic vector fields, etc.

Space Science with SPICE

• Analyzing Solar System orbits using NASA’s SPICE library.

Searching for Exoplanets with Lightkurve

• Analyzing Kepler/TESS time series data for star brightness in search of transits.

Asteroid Spectra Classification with Machine Learning

• Training multi-class Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to classify asteroid spectra.

Integrated Water Hardness Meter

• MVP for a device that homeowners can install and use to monitor water hardness trends in pipes.

Learn Data Analysis with Python

• We run a cluster for the Rutgers Physics department. This is one of our Spring 2023 workshops on learning basic data analysis with Python.