Vishal Upendran

Dr. Upendran is a Helio physicist studying various aspects of the Sun and the heliosphere. His research interests span transient events in the solar atmosphere, solar wind origins and evolution, and solar wind-magnetosphere interaction. He uses spectroscopic analysis, numerical simulations and deep learning/information theory to perform these studies. He also develops space weather forecasting models through the learnings obtained from these studies.

Dr. Upendran is also a part of the Multislit Solar Explorer (MUSE) science team, developing data analysis methods and performing science studies in preparation for the MUSE mission. He also works with the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), and Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) teams to perform scientific studies and develop machine learning models for various applications.

1. 2025: Awarded the NASA-ROSES Heliophysics Guest Investigator grant for the project “Understanding solar wind formation and source region localization using interpretable deep learning” as Principal Investigator.
2. 2023: Awarded the Indo-French Center for the Promotion of Advanced Research grant for the project “ Investigating the origin of switchbacks in the solar corona via interchange reconnection - A statistical and multi-instruments approach including machine learning" as Collaborator, with P.I Prof. Durgesh Tripathi and Dr. Clara Froment.
3. 2022: Awarded the ISRO-RESPOND grant for the project “Solar Flares: Physics and Forecasting for better understanding of Space Weather" as Co-Principal Investigator.
4. 2021: Awarded the Nvidia Academic Hardware grant for the project “Solar wind source region estimation using deep learning" as Principal Investigator.

Popular media:

1. NASA-enabled AI Predictions May Give Time to Prepare for Solar Storms: NASA press release by Vanessa Thomas https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/sun/nasa-enabled-ai-predictions-may-give-time-to-prepare-for-solar-storms
2. Keeping Tabs on the Quiet Sun Aug 2021: AAS Nova by Susanna Kohler: https://aasnova.org/2021/08/09/featured-image-keeping-tabs-on-the-quiet-sun/

On Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=whROWPoAAAAJ&hl=en