Dripta Bhattacharjee

"My family has played a big role in my love for science. When I was about six I got hold of a book that belonged to my uncle and it had these magnificent pictures of nebulae and galaxies. I knew then that I wanted to know more about these magnificent objects that are out there. Later, I got hold of 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking which my father had bought, and there was no turning back. Recently, my parents helped me translate our science summary of GW190412 to Bengali, and that got them hooked to black holes. My grandfather (85 years old) always calls me up with child-like enthusiasm whenever there are LIGO-related articles in the newspaper. Every time I go back to India, he and I go out for a meal where most of the conversation revolves around LIGO, what LIGO is trying to do, what kind of work I am doing in LIGO, what black holes are. My grandmother is just plain happy that I am pursuing my dreams and living the life I like."

Dripta Bhattacharjee is a graduate student at The Institute of Multi-messenger Astrophysics and Cosmology at Missouri University of Science and Technology working on calibration of gravitational-wave interferometers. Dripta believes the most challenging part of working in LIGO, no matter how foolish it sounds, is to understand the acronyms and abbreviations. In her free time, Dripta likes to practice Bharatanatyam, which is an Indian classical dance form. When she feels lazy, she loves to read books, usually fiction ('A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini is her favorite). You can find Dripta on LinkedIn.