Imaging of Newly-identified Edge-on Protoplanetary Disks in Nearby Star-Forming Regions
Since Fall 2014, I have been working within the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department under the mentorship of Gaspard Duchene on a project involving image analysis of edge-on protoplatetary disks, to quantize an observed blue-band atmosphere surrounding certain disk systems.
Using freshly obtained F475W, F606W, and F814W HST images of seven edge-on protoplanetary disk systems, including Tau 042021, I used Python to extract intensity profiles along the disks to observe and quantify the information obtained by the scope of this wavelength range, as well as compare the results to the differences among each disk system.
Beyond coding, our project also involved a 3-night observing run, which I was Co-I on in Nov 2015, where we used the AO system on the Shane 3m at Lick Observatory to search for other qualifying disk candidates.
Future work on this project will involve using a radiative transfer code to model disk structure and evolution to produce synthetic observations to compare to our image data, which would possibly allow us to postulate reasoning for observed disk characteristics.
This is the poster I presented at the 228th AAS Meeting, during June 2016: (click to enlarge)
Using freshly obtained F475W, F606W, and F814W HST images of seven edge-on protoplanetary disk systems, including Tau 042021, I used Python to extract intensity profiles along the disks to observe and quantify the information obtained by the scope of this wavelength range, as well as compare the results to the differences among each disk system.
Beyond coding, our project also involved a 3-night observing run, which I was Co-I on in Nov 2015, where we used the AO system on the Shane 3m at Lick Observatory to search for other qualifying disk candidates.
Future work on this project will involve using a radiative transfer code to model disk structure and evolution to produce synthetic observations to compare to our image data, which would possibly allow us to postulate reasoning for observed disk characteristics.
This is the poster I presented at the 228th AAS Meeting, during June 2016: (click to enlarge)
Energetic Particles in Star Forming Galaxies
Theoretical High Energy Astroparticle Physics |
Summer 2015 |
In Summer 2015 I had the incredible opportunity to complete a 10-week internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a NAC scholar. As an intern under Tonia Venters, a NASA civil servant and brilliant theoretical astrophysicist, we worked on a project to conduct a theoretical study of cosmic ray physics in the starburst galaxy NGC 253 by creating models to speculate the source of its gamma-ray emission. By the end of the summer, I created a theoretical proton spectrum to constrain our values for the theoretical proton index, and future work will involve comparing this spectrum to data from Fermi, NuSTAR, and HESS, and telescopes operating in other wavebands. Research poster
The National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) Program
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the coordinators and mentors of the Goddard NAC program, who provided the opportunity for me to participate in research this summer. The goal of the NAC program is to provide mentorship, professional development, and networking opportunities to students who otherwise would have been overlooked by the traditional academic pipeline. From Q&A with grad students and post docs, to a group visit to our Congressional Representatives in Washington, I thought this was a very successful program and made me much more confident in my decision to pursue graduate studies and my place as an active citizen in the research world.
NAC Website
NAC Website
Supernova Observations
As of Spring 2016 I am a certified observational astronomer at Lick Observatory, and have spent many of my undergraduate nights doing follow up observations for Alex Filippenko's Lick Observatory Supernova Search. On a bi-monthly basis, I spend the whole night remotely taking multi-wavelenth exposures of potential and confirmed SN candidates on the Nickel 1m telescope, based at Lick Observatory in Santa Clara, CA.
In Spring 2015 I also analyzed images taken from the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), a fully robotic telescope part of the Lick Observatory Supernova Search that scans the night sky every night and searches for changes in stellar luminosity, which may indicate a new supernova. Undergraduates on the team sort through the KAIT images to determine if it is indeed a SN candidate.
In Spring 2015 I also analyzed images taken from the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), a fully robotic telescope part of the Lick Observatory Supernova Search that scans the night sky every night and searches for changes in stellar luminosity, which may indicate a new supernova. Undergraduates on the team sort through the KAIT images to determine if it is indeed a SN candidate.