Rohit Raj awarded 2025 SPS Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research

About the Recipient

Chapter and Zone: Juniata College, Zone 3

I recently graduated from Juniata College with a B.S. in Physics and will spend the next year in full-time research positions before entering a PhD program in fall 2026. I am interested in big questions in astrophysics—chiefly how evolving stars sculpt the galaxies that shelter them, from our cosmic backyard all the way to the first structures after the Big Bang.

Each undergraduate summer I have tackled a new research challenge:recreating LIGO’s black-hole signals with matched-filter code, charting Andromeda’s stellar motions, and lately untangling the lives of rare Wolf-Rayet and symbiotic stars to see how they affect their home galaxies. For fun I run numerical simulations and experiment with AI/ML tools to spot hidden patterns in vast data sets. I’ve grown into the “AI-geek on call” for friends and collegues —building prototypes that translate science resources into 70 + languages, spin up AI-generated podcasts, and craft visuals that carry physics to the most remote learners.

Since my first semester I’ve been active in the Society of Physics Students, serving in several chapter posts and a national role, and sharing my work at three AIP-supported national conferences. Physics has opened incredible doors for me; my long-term goal is to harness the next wave of AI tools to push the frontiers of cosmic research—and someday pay that forward as a professor and mentor to budding scientists around the globe.