Nimisha Kumari

Nimisha Kumari is an ESA/AURA Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), where she splits her time between supporting the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and conducting independent research. She also holds a joint position as an Associate Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, particularly chemical abundances, star formation, and gas dynamics. She uses multiwavelength data from instruments like JWST/NIRSpec, Hubble, and ground-based telescopes.

Key roles include leading the JWST Science Operations Calibration Planning Team and serving as Calibration lead for JWST/NIRSpec. Her research interests span high-redshift galaxies, the Epoch of Reionization, interstellar medium physics, and metallicity diagnostics. She has pioneered metallicity calibrations for diffuse ionized gas and explored star-forming regions using integral field spectroscopy.

Recent work includes studies of Pox 186 as a local analogue for reionization-era galaxies, extensions of the Fundamental Metallicity Relation to non-star-forming galaxies, and analysis of radiation hardness in MaNGA galaxies. Her contributions bridge observational astronomy with theoretical models of galactic evolution.