MSSG is:
Mandeep Singh Sher Gill
[If you came here from the a hit on Google for the search term
"mandeep", then you may be interested to know that the name "Mandeep"
translates as "Mind-Light", and the word "Man" (the "a" is here
pronounced as a schwa in Punjabi) is in fact cognate to the word
"mind" ("mental" etc. see e.g. here ), since
Punjabi derives from Sanskrit, both of which are members of the
Indo-European language family, as are all North Indian languages.
Also, there is a bit of general commentary on my last name further
below which may be of some more interest, even if the particulars of
my life immediately below are not...]
August 2006-November 2009 : I am currently a postdoctoral research
fellow at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at the Ohio
State Univ. (OSU), concentrating on galaxy cluster gravitational weak
lensing and determination of cosmological parameters from this
technique (working on DES, and also in a group using data taken to do
cluster weak lensing from the Large Binocular Telescope at Mt. Graham
International Observatory near Safford, Arizona).
My doctorate (Dec. 2004) is in Experimental High Energy Particle
Physics (HEP) from the University of California, Berkeley,
(specifically on the topic of form factor extraction in semileptonic B
meson decay) on the BaBar matter-antimatter asymmetry
experiment at the PEP-II Collider at SLAC, the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center.
In the summer of 2005 I visited the LHC at CERN in Geneva,
Switzerland, and observed (one might even say was "awed by") the
construction of the CMS and Atlas experiments, while I was considering
continuing to work at that point in HEP.
More recently (Fall 2005-Spring 2006) I was involved in a
cosmology project involving second order weak lensing (and ultimately,
better dark matter distribution determination of distant galaxy
clusters) in a visiting position at Caltech, in Pasadena, CA.
Last: a note on my "new" (though legally yet unofficial) middle name: "Sher" (April 2006):
So: for a long time, i've wanted to extend my last name to what is
another version of it in India, "Shergill", and which various others
in my (very large extended) family already have, for a few reasons:
- I find longer last than first names more to my taste and liking
- I generally like long names, multiple middle names etc.
- "Sher" = tiger or lion (from Persian), and i don't mind adding that
to my name (though true, technically it is rather redundant
with the middle name "Singh", which also means lion!). i have no idea
what Gill means (some theories on the web say it may be related to the
Punjabi word "gilla" = wet.. maybe about how much access our ancestors
had to irrigation..??), and in absence of any real info, have always
thought it's likely connected to the Irish surname of "Gill" (through
the Aryan invasions of long ago, and the IndoEuropean connection,
etc. -- and one definition of it from Gaelic roots i found seems
related: a valley or woody glen; a narrow dell with a brook running
through it; a small stream" ).
So adding Sher to my name makes it kind of more "Indian-sounding"
(Punjabi), i do think, which i like, too.
- All 3 of my given names are actually so common that it's easy to confuse
me e.g. on websearches for others.
- It's an easier thing to add a middle name than to change a last
name, for all kinds of forms and things like that. maybe at some
point i'll change my full name legally, but i think it's fine for me
just to start signing everything off this way.
- And now seemed like a good time to do it, in transition between grad
school, and the postdoc i'm soon off to..
So there it is, and henceforth, i'll sign my initials off as "MSSG" and
point people to this page to explain why the change. :->
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