Manvith Kothapalli

Manvith: Wassup! I am Manvith Kothapalli and I will be your personalized instructor for astronomy. I’m a student at Northshore Networks and I’m a senior graduating in 2024. I am interested in majoring in astrophysics and CS. I’ve taken rigorous astronomy courses and physics in high school and got A’s in both classes. I have written a research paper about how to stop a wormhole from collapsing. I have done a project with a Ph. D student from the University of Washington about the career of being an astrobiologist. I have attended seminars at the University of Washington for astrophysics and read many books about astronomy from authors like Stephan Hawkings, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Carl Sagan since the fourth grade. I also got the international silver medal in the International Aerospace Olympiad out of 18000 students as well as top 20 in the international astrophysics competition out of 4000 students. I’m extremely dedicated to teaching students as I know their weaknesses since I’m also a student. We will have a flourishing community where students can interact with their ideas and I will be there to answer your questions. I will guide you through the interwoven complexities of astronomy and make you an expert at the end of this course.

When I’m not teaching students, I’m taking care of my pet budgerigars—I have four of them—building a bird playground for wild birds and my pet birds, and I do farming with my cousins. I also do research about pulsars with a professor at University of Washington and West Virginia University regarding why they produce giant pulses compared to their normal pulses, determine location of molecular clouds in our galaxy using pulsar scintillation, and write code using Jupyterhub which uses python to analyze the pulsar data and make plots. I also do research with a professor at University of Washington Seattle on how to make a robotic arm to help feed people whose shoulder motor function does not work properly. I also have an internship at the Pulsar Science Collaboratory. I am also writing a book which talks about the future of astrophysics and space exploration as well as a guide to astronomy. I also mentor students about how to use engineering tools such as 3D-Printers, Laser-Cutters, CNC Machines, and how to use software to design their creative objects such as onshape and rhino. I also teach students how to code in python at a local library.