Dr. Rajarshi Pal Chowdhury joined StemRad in October 2020 as the lead scientist for space exploration. He handles radiation analysis and protection aspects for a multitude of projects, including our Made In Space and Lockheed Martin collaborations for AstroRad. Dr. Pal Chowdhury has six years of experience in radiation transport, space radiation shielding, analysis of space radiation risk among astronauts, and thermal neutron radiography and tomography. He is well-versed with radiation transport software such as MCNP, PHITS, HZETRN, etc.
Dr. Pal Chowdhury received his PhD from Kansas State University in Nuclear Engineering with a specialization in ‘Hybrid methods of space radiation shielding for astronauts against deep-space radiation’. For his PhD dissertation, he worked on a collaboration project between NASA AES-Radworks and Kansas State University for around three years and worked closely with leading scientists from NASA-JSC, JPL, and the University of Michigan. He has published in the areas of population-based approach for astronaut radiation risk assessments and thermal neutron radiography and co-authored several publications in space radiation transport and shielding. Dr. Pal Chowdhury received his M.S. degree from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Nuclear Engineering in 2016 on the topic of deterministic radiation transport in thermal neutron radiography and tomography.