Ashish Mahabal

Deputy Director, Center for Data Driven Discovery, Caltech

I work on finding and classifying things that change in the sky, using machine learning on data from large sky surveys. I lead the machine learning for the Zwicky Transient Facility and for the RAPID pipeline of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The same methods carry over to other fields with complex data: I work with the Data Science group at JPL on early detection of cancer (EDRN), on biomarker knowledge bases, and on predicting fungal contaminants for space missions.

PhD in Astronomy, IUCAA, Pune (1998).

Research Publications Talks & Teaching Contact

Current focus

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RAPID)Machine learning lead, RAPID team Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)Machine learning lead Early Detection Research Network (EDRN)Data science, with the JPL team Biomarker knowledge bases (BiomarkerKB, CFDE) Fungal contaminants on space missions Explainable AI for gravitational-wave alerts (GWSkyNet)Collaborator

News

Aug 2026 Preprint: predicting fungal contaminants for space missions by proteome-wide screening for protein orthologs.
Apr 2026 Preprint: the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE).
Mar 2026 RAPID workshop for the Roman Space Telescope, Pasadena.
Jan 2026 Preprint: BiomarkerKB, a knowledge base for biomarker-centric exploration of biomedical data.
Jan 2026 Talk in the Roman time-domain session at AAS 247.

Elsewhere

Google Scholar NASA ADS arXiv GitHub Writings

Contact

MC 249-17, Cahill Astronomy, Caltech, 1200 E California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125

Office 243 in Cahill: enter the building and take the stairs to the second floor.

Email: aam at astro.caltech.edu