GSoC 2026 - My Journey to SunPy Under OpenAstronomy

My GSoC Journey

I’m incredibly excited to share that I’ve been selected for Google Summer of Code 2026 under OpenAstronomy for the SunPy project: 

Improving radiospectra’s Functionality and Interoperability.

This has been one of the most emotional and memorable journeys of my life so far.

Getting Started with Open Source

A few months ago, I started exploring open source and eventually came across the SunPy ecosystem and the radiospectra repository. What initially began as curiosity slowly turned into genuine interest as I started understanding the codebase, participating in discussions, attending weekly meetings and contributing through pull requests and issues.

As I spent more time with the project, I became increasingly interested in the architectural discussions around scientific software, interoperability, plotting systems and coordinate-aware APIs. Over time, the project became much more than just a GSoC application for me.

The Rejection 😢

On 30th April, when the official GSoC results were announced, I received a rejection mail.

My project had been dropped because of limited organization slots.

Honestly, after weeks of contributing, refining my proposal, learning the codebase deeply and trying to improve constantly, it felt devastating. I had almost accepted that this year simply wasn’t going to work out for me.

But despite everything, I still wanted to continue contributing to the project because by then I had genuinely started enjoying the work and the community around it.

The Unexpected Mail 🤔

Then came 8th May.

I received an email informing me that OpenAstronomy had received an additional slot and that I had been selected for the project.

For a few moments, I genuinely couldn’t process what I was reading.

The same project that had previously been dropped due to slot limitations was now officially part of GSoC, and I had been selected for it. It was one of the most unexpected moments of my journey so far.

What This Journey Taught Me

This experience taught me something I’ll probably remember for a very long time:

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. "

Open source taught me far more than just writing code. It taught me how to learn publicly, ask questions, accept feedback, discuss ideas and stay consistent even during uncertain moments.

As a first-year student, this opportunity still feels surreal, and I know there’s still a lot for me to learn. But I’m extremely excited for the summer ahead and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to a project and community that I’ve already learned so much from.

A special thanks to my project mentors, @hayesla and @samaloney, whose guidance, feedback and support throughout the contribution and proposal phase played a huge role in helping me reach this point. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to work with them this summer and excited to learn from their experience while contributing to the project.

I’m really looking forward to the summer ahead and excited to contribute more to the SunPy ecosystem and OpenAstronomy.

Here’s to open source, learning, resilience and new beginnings.🚀