Research Assistant · CASSA — Independent University, Bangladesh
Software engineer working at the seam of code and the radio sky.
I build the software behind radio-astronomy research — from deep-learning galaxy classifiers to the platforms that turn raw sky surveys into science. Computer Science undergraduate, co-author on the Radio Galaxy Classifier, and a licensed amateur radio operator.
S21MOB
01 / About
I'm a Computer Science undergraduate at AIUB and a research Assistant at CASSA, Independent University Bangladesh. My work sits at the seam between software engineering and astrophysics: I co-authored CASSA's foundational Radio Galaxy Classifier paper and engineered GAZE, the multi-wavelength platform that produces the morphology catalogs behind our group's studies.
My path into radio astronomy started on a rooftop, not in a lecture hall. As a licensed amateur radio operator (S21MOB), I built my own 21 MHz dipoles and 2m/70cm antennas to chase weak signals — an instinct for the radio sky that grew into research. Away from the keyboard, I teach: I've mentored 450+ students across rural and coastal Bangladesh, led international Python sections for Stanford's Code in Place, and write science features that bring astronomy to a wider audience.
02 / Research
At CASSA's Radio Galaxy Classifier group I work on deep-learning morphological classification of radio AGN from multi-wavelength imagery — and on the software and data pipelines that make that science possible.
A semi-supervised multiclass model for VLA images. Accepted with minor revision (in press) at Astronomy & Astrophysics. My contribution: curating and annotating the foundational FIRST-2060 training catalog that sets the morphological baselines for the primary classifier.
Co-author on a study of cluster-environment effects on radio-tail bending. I designed and deployed GAZE on the lab HPC — a multi-reviewer classification pipeline with a multi-survey viewer (DESI, VLASS, FIRST, LoTSS), WCS axes and contour overlays — and I contribute through model training and fine-tuning.
Studied radio interferometry from first principles — the van Cittert–Zernike theorem, complex visibilities, uv-coverage and the RIME. In Project LoHaZe I reconstructed a 15° LOFAR station beam to −30/−50 dB residual via a Zernike decomposition of the Hamaker beam, using the optimal 40 of 200 modes across 110–170 MHz.
03 / Selected Work
General Astronomy Zoo Environment — a production MERN + TypeScript platform that replaced an astrophysics group's manual PDF-and-spreadsheet workflow for classifying radio galaxies. It features a from-scratch in-browser FITS viewer (Canvas-rendered multi-wavelength overlays, DS9-style stretches, WCS sky axes, σ-level contours, no astronomy libraries) and a PCA-based engine that measures radio-jet bending angle and curvature. Multi-role review, consensus aggregation, and CSV catalog export feed a research paper.
A universal quiz & assessment system in production at Independent University Bangladesh — proctored quizzes, written reports, CSV and AI-generated question banks, live faculty monitoring over WebSockets, and per-attempt anti-cheat forensics. Google SSO restricted to the university domain, JIT enrollment, sanitized quiz payloads and an audit log harden it end to end. Hosted with Docker on an Oracle Cloud VM behind Caddy and Cloudflare.
An open, web-native course communicating fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution.
Every concept that warrants a figure gets a purpose-built interactive —
sliders, scrubbers, ray-tracers and 3D scenes built on three.js, framer-motion and KaTeX,
grounded in real units and literature values. A shared FigureFrame gives every
figure keyboard navigation, fullscreen and theming for free. Fast, dependency-light, MIT +
CC BY licensed.
04 / Skills
05 / Writing & Outreach
I write features and operate telescopes for public observing — translating radio astronomy, deep-sky objects and Bangladesh's science community into stories anyone can read.
06 / Education & Training
American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)
“Unclouding the Thousand Eyes of an Array Radio Telescope.” Synthetic Measurement Sets with synthms; LOFAR Hamaker beams with everybeam on the lab HPC — leading to Project LoHaZe.
Full CCD reduction (bias/dark/flat) and multi-band (I, R, V) aperture/transit photometry of WASP-12b with AstroImageJ.
07 / Contact
Open to research collaborations, software work, and conversations about radio astronomy, machine learning and the space in between.
mobjihad15@gmail.com