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A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, there is an XML version available for digesting as well.
Pages
Posts
The 3Ps of Sustainable and Successful Data Science Career
Published:
I recently wrote an article on the Medium talking about 3 critical Ps that could lead to a reward Data Science Career.
When Galaxies Collide Size Matters
Published:
Many moons ago, Prof. Geraint Lewis and I wrote a piece on the Conversation. This was when our work had turned up an interesting result on measuring the mass of the Andromeda galaxy, which at a distance of only two million light years is our cosmic next-door neighbour.
Cosmic Crime Scene Hunt
Published:
Prof. Lewis and I wrote a brief post (https://theconversation.com/the-cosmic-crime-scene-hunt-for-clues-on-how-galaxies-are-formed-67438) on the Conversation lately, where we attempted to touch on a unsolved puzzle about how large galaxies, like our own Milky Way and the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, emerge from the featureless soup that existed after the birth of our universe.
diary
Keeping Logs
Published:
With the intention of sharing knowledge more widely—and, importantly, keeping a record for myself—I’m starting to jot down thoughts here. My plan is to write at least three working days a week. Naturally, everything shared will be personal reflections and hypothetical scenarios based on what I hear, learn, read or recall from various places, also from present and past; any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental.
When Priorties Shift
Published:
Sometimes projects must be reprioritised—it’s inevitable as business needs shift, markets evolve, and the macroeconomic winds change. A mature leader shields their team as best they can, just as you expect your own manager to shield you too. But inevitably, some of the turbulence splashes through. These are the moments that test your ability to balance the scientific significance of the work with its commercial impact. And, like all good days and bad, these moments too will pass. Hope that the good talent cultivated over time doesn’t slip through the cracks—yet experience shows it often does. Uncertainty is the true killer of motivation.
Feature Store Built Ownership
Published:
A Feature Store can be a Data Scientist’s most impactful — and most complex — product. In a mature company, it must power future models while retrofitting past ones, with automation, CI/CD, and clear ownership built in. Senior DSs should lead, not leave ML Engineers scavenging model by model. Get the prep right — from aggregation windows to DS-driven feature pushes — and let DSs do the first round of data exploration and feature engineering before bringing in ML Engineers. Skip that, and you risk watching DS work die a slow spiritual death.
Within-Subject Design: A Solution for Small Sample Experiments?
Published:
When population size is low and the expected effect size from a treatment is small, experimenters feel powerless in detecting statistically significant results.
portfolio
ABC World Today and SBS Interview On Our Latest Discovery
Rotation Curve of the Milky Way Galaxy
The Lime Light
Front Page Coverage of Our Latest Discovery about the MW Galaxy and its Weight, in Nepali National Daily.
publications
Kinematics of the Stellar Halo and the Mass Distribution of the Milky Way Using Blue Horizontal Branch Stars
Published in Astrophysical Journal, 2012
This study presents a kinematic analysis of the Galactic halo using 4664 blue horizontal branch stars from the SDSS/SEGUE survey, determining velocity dispersion profiles and the anisotropy profile up to a radius of approximately 60 kpc.
Recommended citation: Kafle, P. R., Sharma, S., Lewis, G. F., & Bland-Hawthorn, J. (2012). "Kinematics of the Stellar Halo and the Mass Distribution of the Milky Way Using Blue Horizontal Branch Stars." Astrophysical Journal, 761(2), 98. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/761/2/98
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The Need for Speed: Escape Velocity and Dynamical Mass Measurements of the Andromeda Galaxy
Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2018
This study employs high-velocity planetary nebulae to determine the escape velocity and total mass of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), revealing a virial mass of 0.8 × 10¹² Mₛₒₙ and a radius of 240 kpc.
Recommended citation: Kafle, P. R., Sharma, S., Lewis, G. F., Robotham, A. S. G., & Driver, S. P. (2018). "The Need for Speed: Escape Velocity and Dynamical Mass Measurements of the Andromeda Galaxy." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 475(3), 4043–4054. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty082
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Galaxy Tagging: Photometric Redshift Refinement and Group Richness Enhancement
Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2018
This study introduces the “galtag” algorithm, which enhances photometric redshift accuracy and group richness estimation by probabilistically associating faint galaxies with observed galaxy groups from a spectroscopic survey.
Recommended citation: Kafle, P. R., Robotham, A. S. G., Driver, S. P., Deeley, S., Nørgaard-Nielsen, P., & Drinkwater, M. J. (2018). "Galaxy Tagging: Photometric Redshift Refinement and Group Richness Enhancement." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 479(3), 3746–3761. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1536
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The tidal remnant of an unusually metal-poor globular cluster
Published in Nature, 2020
This study identifies the Phoenix stellar stream as the debris of a globular cluster with a metallicity of [Fe/H] = −2.7, challenging the previously thought metallicity floor for globular clusters.
Recommended citation: Wan, Z., Lewis, G. F., Li, T. S., et al. (2020). "The tidal remnant of an unusually metal-poor globular cluster." Nature, 583, 768–770. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2483-6
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