WORK
MAHESH ANAND is a Research Council Academic Fellow at the OU’s Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR).
His main research interest is petrology, particularly lunar and Martian samples “because I, like most humans, ultimately want to find out how similar other planets are to our own”.
Mahesh investigates the chemical and mineral composition of lunar samples and Martian meteorites and describes his work as “the bridge” between the OU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and its Planetary Space Sciences Research Institute.
“I’m interested in what planets are made of, what led to their formation and how that compares to the formation and evolution of the Earth,” he says. “We can do that by using instruments to age the samples and discover chemicals that can then help us try to synthesise the evolutionary process.”
Mahesh achieved his BSc and MSc in his home country of India before gaining a PhD at Cambridge and then becoming a research associate at the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. But his most notable career highlight to date came in 2004 when he discovered a new lunar mineral, Hapkeite.
“This has the potential to tell us so much more than we previously knew about the Moon,” says Mahesh. “What is the consequence of finding that new mineral? Any discovery of anything new means all telescopic observations and inferences will have to be revised, which means for every thing you learn, there are thousands more questions. That’s why I enjoy my work, because we never stop learning.”
PLAY
Mahesh loves playing and watching sport. “I am a big cricket fan and I played for St John’s College Cambridge when I studied there,” he says. While studying in America he also got into middle distance running and won medals for the 5000m.
“Other than that, I love to spend time with my son,” he adds. “He was born in 2005 and I love taking him out. I look at a lot of stars but he’s my favourite!”
KEY DATES
Oct 1974: Born in Varanasi, the famous holy Hindu city on the
banks of river Ganga in Northern India.
July 1992: Met my future wife, Pallavi Jha, at the University.
January 1994: Part of the meritorious students group, invited by the
Prime Minister of India to witness the Republic Day parade in New Delhi,
India.
July 1995: Obtained BSc degree in Geology from the Banaras Hindu
University with a gold medal.
July 1997: Obtained MSc degree in Applied Geology from the India
Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay (now Mumbai), India with an
Institute Silver medal.
October 1997: Obtained a Cambridge Nehru and British Chevening
Scholarship to pursue a degree of PhD at the University of Cambridge,
UK.
July 2001: Completed PhD and got first post doc at the University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA to work on lunar samples and diamonds.
February 2003: Got married!
April 2004: Discovered and named a new lunar mineral, Hapkeite.
Widely reported by the international news media.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3659551.stm
April 2004: Joined the Natural History Museum in London to work on
Martian meteorites.
April 2005: Birth of our son, Kartik Anand.
October 2005: Joined the Open University as RCUK fellow.
