Outstanding Seniors in the College of Science: Shambhavi Srivastava

This fall, the College of Science recognized ten outstanding seniors for their contributions in and out of the classroom. Shambhavi Srivastava is this semester's recipient from Astronomy and Mathematics.

The College of Science caught up with Shambhavi to learn more about her experiences at the University of Arizona and what is on the horizon after graduation.

Why did you choose to study Astronomy and Mathematics?

I have always been interested in human behavior, emotions, and thought process. The field of psychological science aligns with my desire to understand why people behave the way they do. I’ve always been drawn to topics like mental health and education, so studying the mind was definitely something I wanted to do.

Tell us about a class or research project you really enjoyed.

I’ve particularly enjoyed working with Dr. Daniel Sullivan’s Cultural-Existential Psychology Lab on their systematic review on collective trauma. This project has been focusing on developing a more consistent definition of collective trauma through an interdisciplinary lens. By reading several different empirical articles, I have gained such an understanding of how collective trauma affects groups and communities. I have enjoyed learning about this topic so much, I am working on a separate review for my Honors Thesis focusing specifically on intergenerational trauma and mechanisms of transmission, under Dr. Sullivan as well.

What is one specific memory from your time at UA you’ll cherish forever?

As a clueless student, I was reading interviews of NASA scientists to get to know what, how and what path to take to become one. I guess I was in the geologist or similar category and I saw a lot of 'LPL' and 'University of Arizona' so I just opened the application for transfer and applied to University of Arizona. I had to choose a major in the application, so I opened the list which was in alphabetical order, saw 'astronomy' which looked very fancy and something my mom couldn't say, "you can study here as well". That's how I chose my major!

Tell us about a class or research project you really enjoyed.

My research with Dr. Kathryne Daniel is on radial migration in spiral galaxies focusing on the constraint pitch angle. I worked with tracer particle simulations to check how such wrapping co-rotating spirals with winding patterns differ from the solid-body or density wave spirals having consistent pattern speeds. This estimated RMS changes in azimuthal and radial angular momentum components for particles in the vicinity of the corotation radius and found that co-rotating spirals have higher values of RMS(azimuthal angular momentum) than the solid-body spirals, particularly at larger values of the pitch angle, while the RMS(radial angular momentum) remained largely unaffected. These findings on the dynamical aspects of spiral galaxies form part of a more general investigation into the variation in pitch angles which will be discussed in a subsequent publication.

What is one specific memory from your time at UA you’ll cherish forever?

Honestly, all the outreach opportunities I got through Sky School which introduced me to operating telescopes and just exploring Mt. Lemmon. I made many trips to Mt. Lemmon for this, what a thrill!

What are you most proud of having accomplished in your time at UA?

Funny, I don't think I have "accomplished" anything. I'm just happy with how the process went. 

What is next for you after graduation?

I want to go to graduate school in astronomy.