Richard D’Souza

Fr. Richard D’Souza S.J. was born in 1978 in Pune, India. His initial school years were spent in Kuwait. From 1990, he moved back to his home state of Goa, India and joined a Jesuit school. After finishing his schooling, he entered the Society of Jesus (the Order of the Jesuits) in 1996, and finished his two years noviciate in Belgaum, India. This was followed by a year of study of the humanities in Pune.

In 2002, he completed his graduation in Physics at St. Xaviers’ college in Mumbai and proceeded for his Masters in Physics to the University of Heidelberg, where he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy for his thesis work. He returned to Pune in 2005 to complete a Bachelors degree in philosophy.

In 2007, he founded and ran the St. Paul’s Community College in Belgaum to help school dropouts find gainful employment. After finishing his Bachelors in Theology in 2011 in Pune, he retuned to Goa and ran a popular theology program for the laity called “Deepen Your Faith”. In 2012, he started his doctoral studies in Astronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, in Garching, Munich, graduating in 2016. In 2016, he joined the staff of the Vatican Observatory. From 2016, he started a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Michigan.

He studies the formation and evolution of galaxies, through observations and modelling.