Pawan Dhakal is a physicist and the founder-director of HICS. He holds an A.B. in Physics (High Honors) and Mathematics from Dartmouth College and an M.Sc. in Physics from The Ohio State University. His research spans dark matter phenomenology, cosmic-ray physics, and radar meteor detection, including published work that constrains macroscopic dark matter using meteor-radar data.
Before founding HICS he led offline-first learning platforms as Senior Product Manager at OLE Nepal (2023–2026), and taught, designed passive-solar buildings, and built offline computer labs at schools in Dolpo (4,000 m) and Upper Mustang (3,000 m) — the same high-altitude, off-grid conditions HICS now instruments. He started HICS to make serious, locally rooted science a real choice in Nepal, so that the people best placed to study this place no longer have to leave it to do so.