Current News
04/19/2022 Current undergraduate student Katie Zine has published her first paper in the Astrophysical Journal. The paper deals with the systematics in the estimation of stellar masses and star formation rates of the composite or merged galaxies. Bravo Katie!
04/16/2022 Graduate student Laurin Gray has received a College of Arts and Sciences Travel Award to attend a conference and present her research this summer. Have a great trip, Laurin!
04/15/2022 Congratulations to graduate student Samantha Brunker, who successfully defended her dissertation "Green Peas and Sam: A Multifaceted Approach to Studying Extreme, Star-forming Green Pea Galaxies" this afternoon. Sam is headed to a post-doctoral position at the University of Connecticut. Well done Sam!
04/12/2022 Congratulations to graduate student Madison Smith, who successfully defended her dissertation "A Statistical and Multi-Wavelength Approach to Studying Star Formation Histories in Nearby Galaxies" today. Bravo Madison!
03/10/2022 Graduate student Alex Livernois and collaborators have recently published their work on the long-term evolution of multimass rotating star clusters in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their comprehensive study demonstrates just how complicated the transition from messy star formation to a well-ordered cluster is. Nice work, all!
03/03/2022 Graduate student Laura Congreve Hunter is receiving a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences at IU for the 2022-23 academic year. Hunter's research probes the timescales over which stellar feedback drives turbulent motion in the atomic and ionized gas of nearby, low-mass galaxies. Laura is working with Professor Liese van Zee. Congratulations, Laura!
02/18/2022 Graduate students Samantha Brunker and Brooke Kimsey-Miller and collaborators Prof. John Salzer and former undergraduate student Bryce Cousins' recent paper in the Astrophysical Journal reports on the environments of Green Pea galaxies from the KISS sample. Congratulations all!
02/16/2022 Graduate student Laura Congreve Hunter and collaborators have published a study of the timescale over which stellar feedback drives turbulence in the interstellar medium. They looked at four nearby dwarf irregular galaxies and found that turbulence increases in the interstellar medium some 100-200 million years after a period of star formation. The research is published in the Astronomical Journal. Good work, Laura!
12/15/2021 Congratulations to graduate student Ryan Lambert, who successfully defended his dissertation "Searching for Substructure in the Stellar Populations of Dwarf and Giant Galaxies" today. Well done Ryan!
11/30/2021 Graduate student Chris Agostino has led an international team of collaborators in his large-scale study of the emission line properties of 100,000 low-luminosity AGN. The results have just been published in the Astrophysical Journal. Nicely done Chris. Keep up the good work.
11/11/2021 Postdoctoral Associate Vaclav Pavlik and Prof. Enrico Vesperini have published their study of factors that affect the evolution of star clusters toward equipartition of energy, including the galactic tidal field, initial anisotropy in the velocity field, and the initial binary star population. They find that all of these factors affect clusters' dynamical evolution. The study can be found in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Nice work!
11/01/2021 Graduate students Christopher Agostino and Laura Hunter gave virtual talks at the 1st KIAA Forum on Gas in Galaxies for Early Career Scientists (KooGiG-Junior). The forum aims to bring together active astronomers, especially early career scientists, for the purpose of exchanging recent progress and discussing future frontiers. The 1st KooGiG-Junior focused on the multiphase gas in and around galaxies, including the interstellar medium (ISM), circumgalactic medium (CGM), intracluster medium (ICM), as well as the interactions among them.
10/21/2021 Congratulations to graduate student Jennifer Sieben, who has received a 2021 Provost's Travel Award for Women in Science to attend the 239th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Salt Lake City, UT. Bravo Jennifer!
10/20/21 IU Astronomy alumni Owen Boberg (Ph.D. 2017) has worked as a Data Scientist at the Indiana Management Performance Hub for 3 years. In December 2020 he received an award from the IN State Health Commissioner for “Excellence in Public Health” for his work on the team that handled the state Covid-19 data sets and produced the Covid-19 dashboard. Owen was also recognized in 2021 as one of the “Tech 25”. The Tech 25 Awards honor a prestigious selection of twenty-five individuals who are critical and exceptional performers helping to grow Indiana’s tech and tech-enabled companies. See more here: "Techpoint Announces 2021 Class of Tech 25 Winners" In August 2021, Owen joined an Indianapolis private sector company called Mandolin as the Principal Data Engineer. The company (https://mandolin.com) provides a platform for musicians to stream concerts and performances.
10/01/2021 Graduate student Justin Kader, along with collaborators Prof Liese van Zee and graduate student Laura Hunter, has published "Anomalous H-alpha Emission Line Profile Detected at the Center of DDO 53" in the Astrophysical Journal. The paper reports the detection of a very broad low-intensity H-alpha emission line component near the center of DDO 53, a star-forming dwarf irregular galaxy in the M81 group, based on SparsePak observations with the WIYN 3.5m telescope.
09/01/2021 Post-doc Vaclav Pavlik and Prof. Steve Shore (University of Pisa, Italy) have published a Letter to the Editor of Physics Today: How a fake Kepler portrait became iconic. They describe the research that exposed the portrait as fake. Because of its wide acceptance, both authors of the letter urge the correction of the mistake, especially since 2021 marks Kepler’s 450th birthday.
08/26/2021 Graduate student Alex Livernois along with collaborators Enrico Vesperini and past graduate student Maria Tiongco have published Early dynamics and violent relaxation of multimass rotating star clusters, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their study is aimed at exploring, by means of N-body simulations, the evolution of rotating multimass star clusters during the violent relaxation phase, in the presence of a weak external tidal field. Nicely done Alex!
08/10/2021 Graduate student Madison Smith along with collaborators Liese van Zee and Samir Salim have published A Multiwavelength Study of Star Formation in 15 Local Star Forming Galaxies, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their paper is the first of a series that will describe in detail the star formation properties in the Local Volume. Great work, Madison!
08/07/2021 IU Astronomy alumna Stella Kafka (Ph.D. 2005), CEO of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, has published an article "Celebrating a century of Variable Star astronomy" in the September issue of Astronomy Magazine. Congratulations on the AAVSO's 110th anniversary!
07/30/2021 Congratulations to graduate students Laurin Gray and Kristin Brady, who have received a 2021 Provost's Travel Awards for Women in Science to attend the Maria Mitchell Women of Science Symposium this fall. This conference provides inspiration and support for women in STEM at all stages of their careers.
06/30/2021 Professor Liese van Zee presented a briefing to staff members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology regarding the recently released consensus study report "Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023" https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26080/views-of-the-us-national-academies-of-sciences-engineering-and-medicine-on-agenda-items-at-issue-at-the-world-radiocommunication-conference-2023. Professor van Zee was chair of the committee that authored this report, which provides information regarding the potential impact of Agenda Items at the next World Radiocommunications Conference on scientific use of the radio spectrum. Excellent work Liese!
06/18/2021 Congratulations to alumna Qinghui Sun, who has been awarded the Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar Program fellowship at Tsinghua University in China. Dr. Sun received her Ph.D. in Astronomy at IU earlier this year. Congratulations, Qinghui!!
05/14/2021 Graduate student Laura Hunter has been allocated telescope time with the Very Large Array in B configuration. Her observations are an integral component of her dissertation research on the gas kinematics of nearby galaxies. Way to go Laura!!
04/26/2021 Graduate Student Bobby Butler, along with his advisor Samir Salim, have published UV Extinction as a More Fundamental Measure of Dust than E(B-V) or A_V in the Astrophysical Journal. They investigate 41 sightlines in the Milky Way and find that UV extinction is a better way to estimate hydrogen column density. Great work, Bobby!
04/22/2021 Marvin Jones, an Astrophysics graduate student in Physics, has participated in the NASA Internship program, working on the pulsed fission/fusion propulsion system (PuFF!) for future spacecraft at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Read about Marvin's exciting work here!
04/05/2021 It's a banner year for graduate student fellowships from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium! Laurin Gray, Brooke Kimsey-Miller, and Madison Smith will receive fellowships to support their continued graduate studies. Congratulations to all - we're so proud of your accomplisments!
04/05/2021 Undergraduate Katie Zine has been selected to participate in the research experience for undergraduates (REU) program at West Virginia University this summer. She will be working on Fast Radio Bursts as part of the team who first discovered these intriguing phenomena in 2007. Congratulations Katie!
03/20/2021 Graduate student David Carr is receiving a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences at IU for the 2021-22 academic year to complete his dissertation on Active Galactic Nuclei Across Cosmic Time. David is working with Professor John Salzer. Congratulations, David!
02/20/2021 We've learned that our own Samantha Brunker received an honorable mention for the Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize from the American Astronomical Society for her dissertation talk at the January AAS meeting A Multifacited Approach to Studying Extreme, Star-Forming Green Pea Galaxies. Great work, Sam!
01/18/2021 Mayor Hamilton of Bloomington presented this year's Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Award to IU Astrophysics graduate student Marvin Jones! The award honors individuals who carry on Dr. King's message of love and community, and recognizes Marvin's many efforts in support of students of all races. Marvin is vice president of the Kappa Lambda chapter of the Alpha Pi Alpha fraternity. Marvin, we're so grateful for all you contribute to the community. Congratulations!
1/08/2021 A record number of IU students are attending this January's virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (https://aas.org/meetings/aas237). Thanks to support from our donors, 16 IU graduate students and ten IU undergraduate students are able to participate in this annual gathering of thousands of astronomers. Three of our graduate students, Kristin Brady, David Carr, and Justin Kader, along with undergraduate student Jaqueline Patterson, are presenting posters on their research, and three more of our graduate students, Bobby Butler, Chris Agostino, and Chandler Osborne are giving oral presentations. And Samantha Brunker is presenting a dissertation talk. We're proud of all of you!
12/12/2020 IU Alumnus Mike Weasner (B.S. '70, Astrophysics) has been awarded a Bicentennial Medal in Astronomy Outreach for his work at the Cassiopeia Observatory near Tucson, AZ, and for his efforts to protect dark skies for astronomy. Keep up the great work, Mike - we appreciate it!
12/7/2020 Graduate student Chris Macias is a co-author on a paper presenting the first results of a experiment he worked on at CERN: First results on ProtoDUNE-SP liquid argon time projection chamber performance from a beam test at the CERN Neutrino Platform. Great Job Chris. It looks like your hard work at CERN is paying off.
12/3/2020 Congratulations to Qinghui Sun for passing her disseration defense!! We couldn't be happier and wish her all the best. We look forward to seeing what comes next.
11/24/2020 Congratulations to our very own Liese van Zee - who has just been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in honor of her distinguished service as chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Radio Frequencies and for incisive contributions to the understanding of galaxy formation and evolution!
11/10/2020 Graduate student Laura Hunter has been allocated telescope time with the Very Large Array in D configuration. Her observations are an integral component of her dissertation research on the gas kinematics of nearby galaxies. Fantastic Laura! Keep up the good work!
10/28/2020 Graduate student Bobby Butler gave an oral presentation titled "UV Extinction as a Fundamentally Better Measure of Dust" at the international conference "The Rise of Metals and Dust in Galaxies through Cosmic Time". The meeting was originally supposed to take place in Marseille, France, but was converted into a virtual event. Fantastic Bobby. Sorry you had to miss out on Marseille. Next Year!
10/27/2020 Undergraduate student Jude Gussman is featured on the IUB campus Spotlight. Way to go Jude!
10/27/2020 IU Astronomy Research on the Milky Way's Bulge is featured in press releases from the Space Telescope Science Institute and NSF's NOIRLab. IU supercomputers were used to produce the new catalog of 250 million stars in the Bulge - the deepest multi-wavelength catalog of stars in the Bulge ever produced. Congrats to IU grads Christian Johnson, Scott Michael, and Michael Young who made it happen.
10/15/2020 Graduate student Chandler Osborne led an international team of collaborators to produce the study titled CANDELS Meets GSWLC: Evolution of the Relationship between Morphology and Star Formation Since z=2, published in the Astrophysical Journal. Link: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/abb5af. Nice Job Chandler. Keep up the good work!
10/15/2020 Graduate student Christopher Agostino presented his new work on AGN as a prerecorded iPoster at the conference "Galaxy Formation and Evolution in the Era of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope" hosted as a virtual event by STScI. Way to go Chris!
10/14/2020 Congratulations to graduate student Brendan Reed on the publication of his latest paper, Efficient Mass Estimate at the Core of Strong Lensing Galaxy Clusters using the Einstein Radius" by Gonzalez et al. in the Astrophysical Journal.
10/9/2020 During the past month, Professor van Zee has been actively engaged in several different activities aimed at protecting the radio spectrum for scientific use. In September, she was a member of the US delegations to the International Telecommunication Union Working Party 7D (Radio Astronomy) and Working Party 7C (Earth Remote Sensing) meetings. Topics at both meetings included the potential impact of proposed actions at the next World RadioCommunication Conference on the scientific use of the radio spectrum. Professor van Zee also presented at the Dark and Quiet Skies conference, held this week, the outcome of which will be recommendations presented to the United Nations' Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) regarding ways to minimize or mitigate the threat of light pollution to astronomy and to the visibility of the pristine night sky. Thank you Liese for all your hard work protecting our night skies!
09/03/2020 Graduate student Chris Macias has had a number of papers published recently of which he is a co-author: Differences in the response of two light guide technologies and two readout technologies after an exchange of liquid argon in the dewar, A measurement of absolute efficiency of the ARAPUCA photon detector in Liquid Argon, Volume I. Introduction to DUNE, Volume III. DUNE far detector technical coordination, and Volume IV. The DUNE far detector single-phase technology. Wow! Keep up the good work Chris.
09/02/2020 A new paper, Substructure in the Globular Cluster Populations of the Virgo Cluster Elliptical Galaxies M84 and M86, has just been published in the Astrophysical Journal by graduate student Ryan Lambert with collaborators Kathy Rhode and Enrico Vesperini. Nice work!
09/01/2020 We welcome Vaclav Pavlik to the department! Dr. Pavlik is a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Enrico Vesperini on numerical models of star clusters and dense stellar systems, binary star dynamics, and stellar evolution. We're delighted you are here!
08/25/2020 Our newest graduate students have arrived to begin their studies with us. We welcome Armaan Goyal, Brandon Radzom, and Ryan Webster to Bloomington, to IU, and to the Astronomy Department. They are off to a great start, and we're so happy they are here!
08/15/2020 We are thrilled about the arrival of our newest faculty member, Professor Songhu Wang. Professor Wang comes to us from Yale University, where he held a prestigious 51 Peg b Fellowship from the Heising-Simons Foundation. His research centers on placing our solar system in the context of the Galaxtic exoplanetary census, using the full range of observational and theoretical approaches to understanding exoplanetary systems. Welcome Professor Wang!
08/02/2020 The proposal led by graduate student Chris Agostino to study optical emission lines of X-ray AGN with an adaptive optics spectrograph MUSE has been awarded observing time on the 8.2 m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The project forms a part of Chris's dissertation on the observational signatures of active galaxies and the relative merits of selection techniques with X-ray, optical, and IR data. Way to go Chris!
07/28/2020 Congratulations to graduate student Samantha Brunker and her collaborators on the publication of their paper Properties of Green Pea Galaxies in the Astrophysical Journal.
06/19/2020 A new paper has now been published in the Astronomical Journal by graduate student Qinghui Sun and collaborators. See WIYN Open Cluster Study LXXX: HDI CCD UBVRI Photometry of the Old Open Cluster NGC 7142 and Comparison to M67. Congratulations to all.
06/13/2020 Our own science communicator, graduate student Jennifer Sieben, has been featured on Ethan Siegel's podcast on soundcloud.com. Take a listen here!
06/12/2020 We very pleased to report that graduate student Madison Smith is receiving a fellowship from NASA's Indiana Space Grant Consortium to support her research on the star formation histories of nearby galaxies. Way to go, Madison!
06/03/2020 Last night, Hubble took the first observations of graduate student Samantha Brunker's Green Pea galaxies. See where Hubble pointed here: HADOT-144. Green Pea galaxies are compact, emission line galaxies at redshifts between z=0.112 and z=0.360.
05/04/2020 Graduate student Qinghui Sun and collaborators, including our own Constantine Deliyannis, have just published their paper WIYN Open Cluster Study LXXIX. M48 (NGC 2548) I. Radial Velocities, Rotational Velocities, and Metallicities of Stars in the Open Cluster M48 (NGC 2548) in the Astronomical Journal. Congratulations all!
04/14/2020 Graduate student Laurin Gray's paper Dusty Stellar Birth and Death in the Metal-poor Galaxy NGC 6822 has just been published in the Astrophysical Journal. Great work, Laurin!
04/07/2020 Congratulations to graduate student Zachary Maas, who successfully defended his dissertation, "The Galactic Chemical Evolution of Chlorine and Phosphorus," today on Zoom. Zack will be taking up a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Austin in the fall.
03/31/2020 A new paper by Brendan Reed, along his advisor Chuck Horowitz in Physics, has just been accepted for Physical Review C. Brendan and Chuck have been able to place a lower limit on the speed of sound in a neutron star based on observations of the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Their work has implications on the state of matter in neutron stars. Their paper is available on arXiv at this link. Great work Brendan!
03/07/2020 Our very own Jennifer Sieben has been awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Dissertaion Year Fellowship to complete her dissertation on the star formation history of galaxies, working with Professor John Salzer. Jennifer is also well known for her Astronomy blog.Congratulations Jennifer!
02/25/2020 Congratulations to IU astronomers Eileen Friel and Caty Pilachowski, both of whom have been honored as Fellows of the American Astronomical Society, recognizing their contributions to the field. Link to full article: American Astronomical Society Announces First Class of AAS Fellows .
02/15/2020 Undergraduate student Maria del Valle Coello has been selected to attend the Hamburg International Summer School in Germany this summer, to participate in a course on ''Particles, Strings, and Cosmology.'' Maria has been working with the CENNS experiment at IU's Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter to examine scattering processes between neutrinos and neutrons.
02/10/2020 Our own Liese van Zee has been honored as a ''National Associate'' by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for her extraordinary service as chair of the National Academies' Committee on Radio Frequencies. Well done, Liese!
02/04/2020 Jeffrey Gerber, our most recent Ph.D. graduate, has just published his work on the globular cluster Messier 71, entitled ''Identifying Multiple Populations in M71 Using CN.'' Find the paper in the Astronomical Journal . Congratulations Jeff, and good luck!
01/22/2020 Good news for Astronomy undergraduates. The Astronomy department has setup a new tutoring program utilizing our upperclassmen to provide tutoring services free of charge for those that would like a little help with their Astronomy class work. Walk in hours are posted at https://astro.indiana.edu/tutoring.shtml . Please don't hesitate to take advantage of this opportunity to get help with your studies. Good Luck!! Per ardua ad astra.
01/08/2020 NASA has announced ''first light'' for the new NEID extreme precision radial velocity spectrometer at the WIYN telescope. See the press release!
11/25/2019 Congratulations to graduate student Zack Maas and his collaborators on the publication of his latest paper "Phosphorus Abundances in the Hyades and Galactic Disk" in the Astronomical Journal.
11/20/2019 Kirkwood Observatory closed for the season on Nov. 20. Unfortunately the night was cloudy, but since our Open Nights began last spring, hundreds of people have enjoyed close up views of the Moon, planets, and stars. The Observatory will open again after Spring Break, 2020. Come visit us then!
11/15/2019 Undergraduate student Bihan Shen has recently published her research on the abundance of barium in the young star RZ Psc as Research Note of the American Astronomical Society. Congratulations Bihan!
11/13/2019 Graduate student Laura Hunter has been allocated 120 hours of VLA time (40 hours in C configuration and 80 hours in B configuration during 2020) for her dissertation research on the timescales of neutral and ionized gas kinematics in low mass galaxies. Congratulations, Laura!
10/26/2019 The Astronomy Department participated in this year's Science Fest, organized by the College of Arts and Sciences. We hosted an activity room in Swain West (featuring the ever-popular "Make Your Own Comet!") and tours of Kirkwood Observatory. Despite the rainy weather, our volunteers were busy all day, sharing the excitement of astronomy.
10/4/2019 We're excited to report that Professor Samir Salim is receiving a 3-year grant from NASA for his research "Sharpening GALEX images to derive accurate physical properties of low-z galaxies and inform high-z studies." Congratulations, Samir!
9/27/2019 Congratulations to undergraduate student Jude Gussman on the publication of his research paper "The Abundance of Lithium in the Double-lined Spectroscopic Binary Omega Draconis," appearing in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. Great work, Jude!
9/1/2019 Associate Professor Con Deliyannis has been awarded a collaborative NSF grant on "Understanding Stellar Structure Using Lithium and New Steps Toward the Big Bang Lithium Abundance." The award supports the analysis of stellar Lithium abundances in several open and globular clusters with the goal to pioneer studies on the role of stellar metal content in determining the level of Li-depletion, amongst others.
8/29/2019 Our newest graduate students, Kristin Brady, Laurin Gray, Brooke Kimsey-Miller, Omid Noroozi, and Ethan White have arrived and are off to a great start. We're thrilled to have such a promising cohort of new students! We offer special congratulations to Ethan White, who has received a President's Diversity Recruitment Fellowship.
8/28/2019 We welcome Prof. Samir Salim, who has joined the regular faculty as a new Assistent Professor. Samir's research focuses on galaxy evolution, using the statistical power of large, multi-wavelength surveys like GALEX, SDSS, and WISE to understand the interplay between star formation, gas accretion, and AGN feedback in galaxies.
8/19/2019 Prof. Caty Pilachowski was recently interviewed for WFIU's Profiles, a weekly one-hour radio program featuring conversations with local and national figures who have an impact in our community. Follow this link to listen to her interview! https://indianapublicmedia.org/profiles/astronomer-caty-pilachowski.php
7/30/2019 Former IU graduate student, currently the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, Martha P. Haynes has been awarded the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for her lifetime of outstanding achievement and contributions to astrophysics research. Congratulations, Martha!
7/19/2019 The Department celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with a public showing of two films: "The Dish," a 2000 film about the role of Australia's Parkes Radio Observatory in communications with the Apollo 11 mission, and "Apollo 11," a 2019 documentary comprised of archival footage from the time. Both films were accompanied by short talks about this historic event.
7/17/2019 Congratulations to graduate student Jennifer Sieben for earning a graduate fellowship this year from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium.
7/11/2019 In her role as Chair of the National Academies' Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF), Professor van Zee was recently quoted in an article summarizing the expected impact of new FCC rules on the future of ground based radio astronomy: Scientists Wary of Interference from Impending Telecommunication Initiatives. Professor van Zee also recently led a "white paper" on spectrum management that was submitted to the Astro2020 decadal survey: Spectrum Management: A State of the Profession White Paper.
7/4/2019 Wow! Our very own Samantha Brunker, in collaboration with faculty member John Salzer and collaborators Danielle Berg and Aparna Venkatesan, has been awarded 25 Hubble orbits for her research "Escaping Ionizing Radiation in Compact Star-Forming Galaxies: Probing Higher-Mass Systems." Good work, Sam!
6/12/2019 Congratulations to graduate student Zack Maas and collaborators Jeff Gerber, Alex Deibel, and Caty Pilachowski on the publication of their latest paper "Carbon Isotope Ratios in M10 Giants" in the Astrophysical Journal.
5/31/2019 Starting June 1, the Astronomy Department is now the official host of Hal Kibbey's Star Trak column. You can find Star Trak as a link in the list at the left side of our main department web page. The new Star Trak page includes links to recent issues, as well as the text of the current issue. The direct link to the page: http://www.astro.indiana.edu/startrak.shtml.
Thanks to Bob Lezotte for getting this site up so quickly and to IU Communications for facilitating this transition. Star Trak will no longer be distributed as an IU press release but will be posted monthly here on our site. Enjoy!5/28/2019 Professor Liese van Zee is a member of the US delegation to the International Telecommunication Union Working Party 7D (Radio Astronomy) and Study Group 7 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland this week. Topics to be discussed include an update on characteristics of radio quiet zones and further studies of compatibility between car radars at 76-81 GHz and radio astronomy observations, as well as ongoing prepartion for the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19).
5/13/2019 After several years of renovations and updates, today Swain West is being rededicated! The formal academic ceremony will be held in Alumni Hall at 4:00 PM, followed by a reception in the Physics Atrium of Swain West. Please join us!
5/8/2019 We received wonderful news that one of our talented undergraduates, Maria del Valle Coello, has been name a Goldwater Scholar for the 2019-20 academic year. The honor recognizes outstanding college sophomores and juniors who show great promise in math, science or engineering. Way to go Maria!! Keep up the good work. If you would like to read the full announcement: https://news.iu.edu/stories/2019/05/iub/03-goldwater-scholars.html.
4/29/2019 Chris Agostino, one of our current graduate students, has had a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal titled "Crossing the Line: Active Galactic Nuclei in the Star-forming Region of the BPT Diagram". Congratulations Chris!
4/19/2019 Jordan Majoros, who worked with Professor Samir Salim as part of CEWiT Research Experience for Undergraduates program,won 2019 Women's Research Poster Competition in Physical & Mathematical Sciences category held last week: http://cewit.indiana.edu/news/2019-poster-competition.shtml. Jordan is a sophomore and is part of IU's statistics program. Her poster "HUGIE - Hubble Galaxies Interactive Explorer" can be viewed at: https://iu.box.com/s/p0ywpqvbqrdgphcg4lzimm1b1ias5b7u. Congratulations Jordan!!
4/9/2019 Graduate Jeff Gerber with collaborators Mike Briley and Graeme Smith has just published a paper on "Carbon Abundance Inhomogeneities and Deep Mixing Rates in Galactic Globular Clusters" in the Astronomical Journal.
3/25/2019 Recent Graduate Bill Janesh (IU PhD Sep 2018) has had his final dissertation paper accepted to The Astronomical Journal. The paper is about five nearby (˜350 kpc to 1.6 Mpc) low-mass galaxy candidates that have been identified in WIYN pODI imaging of objects selected from the ALFALFA neutral hydrogen survey. The full title of the paper is "Five Gas-rich Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Candidates Discovered in WIYN Imaging of ALFALFA Sources"; co-authors include several IU alumni (Betsey Adams, Steven Janowiecki, Martha Haynes, and Riccardo Giovanelli). Congratulations Bill!
3/4/2019 Graduate student Sam Brunker and her collaborators have just published her paper "The Enigmatic (Almost) Dark Galaxy Coma P: Distance Measurement and Stellar Populations from HST Imaging" in the Astronomical Journal. Nice work, Sam!
2/1/2019 Congratulations to current graduate student Sam Brunker for earning a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences! Dissertation Year Fellowships are intended to assist advanced graduate students to make significant progress on their dissertations, since they will have the opportunity to focus full-time on their dissertation research and writing.
1/30/2019 Today's 6th Annual F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by Vicky Kalogera (Northwestern University) on the topic of "Cosmic Collisions Reveal Einstein's Gravitational-Wave Universe." Prof Kalogera will talk about the recent detection of gravitational waves from mergers of black holes and neutron stars. She will also review the state of this emerging field and discuss the exiting prospects on the horizon. See the press release for more information.
1/25/2019 Recent graduate student Karna Desai published a paper from his dissertation titled "A 3D hydrodynamics study of gravitational instabilities in a young circumbinary disc" in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
1/17/2019 Anthony Coniglio, a senior at Indiana University Bloomington, is one of 16 Churchill Scholars for the 2019-20 academic year. Anthony has been very busy at IU as he is expected to graduate from IU with bachelor's degrees in mathematics (with honors), physics, astronomy/astrophysics and music/piano. We wish Anthony good fortune on his next adventure at the Unviersity of Cambridge. Good luck Anthony!! For the full story please see the news item at https://news.iu.edu/stories/2019/01/iub/releases/17-senior-anthony-coniglio-named-churchill-scholar.html
1/7/2019 Multiple members of the IU Astronomy community attended the 233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA. Two graduate students presented their dissertation talks: Jeffrey Gerber on "Light Element Inhomogeneities and Multiple Populations in Galactic Globular Clusters" and Zachary Maas on "The Galactic Chemical Evolution of Chlorine and Phosphorus." Current graduate students Christopher Agostino, Jennifer Sieben, and Samantha Brunker presented posters or gave talks on their research as well.
12/14/2018 Professor Caty Pilachowski has been named an IU distinguished professor. According to IU President Michael A. McRobbie, "Indiana University's distinguished professors are scholars and researchers who are recognized by their peers as some of the very best anywhere in the world". Of course, we already knew that but we're very proud that our Caty is getting the recognition she deserves. Congratulations Caty!! Read the full article at http://news.iu.edu: Indiana University names 10 faculty members distinguished professors.
11/14/2018 Tonight is the last scheduled Kirkwood Open House night for the 2018 calendar year, but, sadly, the cloud cover does not look promising. It has been a busy year with many daytime and evening tours scheduled in addition to the Wednesday night Open Houses. We look forward to re-opening on the Wednesday following spring break, hopefully with better weather conditions!
11/14/2018 Congratulations to Bryce Cousins on the award of a prestigious USRA James B. Willett Educational Memorial Scholarship! Bryce is an Astronomy/Astrophysics and Physics double major working with Professor John Salzer on the analysis of data on emission line galaxies that will help them understanding how large-scale structure can influence star formation in these galaxies. The scholarship recognizes Bryce's strong academic record, his accomplishments, and his plans for research and a career in science and space research. For more information, see the press release.
11/1/2018 Emeritus Professor Kent Honeycutt received a joint grant with former IU student Eric Schlegel (IU PhD 1993) to study photometry of cataclysmic variable stars using data from the Kepler spacecraft. Eric Schlegel is the Vaughn Family Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Texas, San Antonio.
11/1/2018 Emeritus Professor Kent Honeycutt recently published "Orbital Light Curves of UU Aquari in Stunted Outburst" in collaboration with several former IU students. First author Jeff Robertson (IU PhD 1995) is currently Dean of the College of Natural and Health Sciences at Arkansas Technical University. Co-author Arne Henden (IU PhD 1985) recently retired as the Director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).
10/27/2018 Hundreds of visitors stopped in at our Hands-On Astronomy Room and visited Kirkwood Observatory during this year's IU Science Fest. At Kirkwood Observatory, our visitors created solar system bracelets and took a look at the historic 12" refracting telescope. In the newly renovated Swain West building, visitors had the opportunity to make their own comets, explore a massive star cluster in virtual reality, and color a pocket solar system. We hope our visitors enjoyed the day as much as we did!
9/26/2018 Graduate students Samantha Brunker and Jennifer Sieben have received Provost's Travel Awards for Women in Science to attend the AAS meeting in Seattle in January. Congratulations to both!
9/18/2018 Professor Liese van Zee is a member of the US delegation to the International Telecommunication Union Working Party 7D (Radio Astronomy) and Study Group 7 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. These semi-anual meetings lay the foundation for international regulations of the radio spectrum.
8/29/2018 We welcome our newest graduate students, Laura Hunter, Alexander Livernois, Chandler Osborne, and Brendan Reed to the department, with special congratulations to Brendan Reed, who has received a President's Diversity Recruitment Fellowship. We're thrilled that all of you are here.
8/15/2018 Professor Liese van Zee has been awarded a collaborative NSF grant on "A Quantitative Framework for the Flow of Metals in Nearby Galaxies." The award supports the analysis of oxygen and nitrogen abundances in nearby dwarf galaxies with the goal to derive self-consistent chemical enrichment histories based on spatially resolved star formation histories and current gaseous and stellar properties.
8/13/2018 Congratulations to our new Ph.D. graduate Dr. William Janesh on the successful defense of his dissertation "Searching for Resolved Stellar Populations in ALFALFA Ultra Compact High Velocity Clouds."
8/12/2018 Graduate student Zack Maas recently published a paper on his work on "Chlorine Isotope Ratios in M giants" in the Astronomical Journal. Congratulations Zack!
8/10/2018 Graduate students Jeff Gerber and Zack Maas attended the Cool Stars 20 conference in Boston this month. Jeff presented a poster on "Carbon and Nitrogen Abundances in Red Giants in Galactic Globular Clusters." Zack's poster was on the topic "Exploring the Galactic Chemical Evolution of Chlorine with HCl Features in Cool Stars."
7/27/2018 Congratulations to Dr. Maria Tiongco, our newest Ph.D. graduate. After completing her dissertation on "Kinematical Evolution of Tidally Limited Star Clusters," Maria is continuing as a postdoctoral research associate with us in Bloomington.
7/9/2018 Graduate student Zachary Maas has been awarded observing time on NASA's InfraRed Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, using the new ISHELL spectrograph.
7/1/2018 Congratulations to Enrico Vesperini on his promotion to Associate Professor in our department.
6/8/2018 Graduate student Jeff Gerber, along with Eileen Friel and Enrico Vesperini, published a new paper on "Light Element Abundances and Multiple Populations in M10" in the Astronomical Journal.
6/1/2018 Graduate student Chris Macias has just returned from a semester at CERN in Geneva.
5/15/2018 Former graduate student Emily Richards published the final paper from her dissertation - "Baryonic distributions in galaxy dark matter haloes - II. Final results" - in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
4/23/2018 Congratulations to our newest Indiana Space Grant Consortium fellowship recipients, Christopher Agostino, Jennifer Sieben, and Bobby Butler! Good work, all of you!!
3/26/2018 Our own Samantha Brunker has been awarded the McCormick Science Grant for 2018 from the IU College of Arts and Sciences. The award is given to the graduate student member of a faculty/graduate student team whose research is judged most creative, visionary, and innovative. Well done, Sam!
3/7/2018 Congratulations to IU undergraduate students Bryce Cousins and Neil Bassett on their election to Phi Beta Kappa. We're proud of you!
3/1/2018 Former graduate student Randy Hamper and Professor Emeritus Kent Honeycutt recently published their paper on "M Dwarf Variability and Periodicities in Praesepe."
2/23/2018 Professor Caty Pilachowski is being honored today as this year's recipient of the College's Distinguished Faculty Award. Congratulations, Caty!
2/15/2018 Former graduate student Alec Hirschauer published a paper from his dissertation: "Metal Abundances of KISS Galaxies. VI. New Metallicity Relations for the KISS Sample of Star-forming Galaxies" in the Astronomical Journal.
2/7/2018 Professor John Salzer has been awarded time on the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to obtain a more precise estimate of the primordial helium abundance in the Universe using near-infrared spectroscopy. Congratulations, John!
2/1/2018 Congratulations are in order for our very own Zachary Maas. It was announced this week that he has been awarded the College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Research Fellowship for 2018-2019. Congrats Zack and we look forward to the completion of your dissertation! To read more about the award Zack received and others offered by the College of Arts and Sciences at IU, follow the link: https://college.indiana.edu/student-portal/graduate-students/financial-support/fellowships-awards.html
1/12/2018 IU Astronomy is well represented at the 231st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Washington, DC. Karna Desai presented his dissertation talk on Wednesday on "Gravitational Instabilities in a Young Protoplanetary Disk with Embedded Objects." Former graduate student Alex Hirschauer presented his dissertation talk on Thursday on "Metallicities of Galaxies in the Local Universe." Current graduate students Bill Janesh, Qinghui Sun, Zack Maas, and Jeff Gerber, and current undergraduate Doryan Miller presented posters on their research on Thursday as well. Maria Tiongco presented her dissertation talk on Friday on "Effects of Dynamical Evolution on Globular Clusters' Internal Kinematics."
12/21/2017 Professor Caty Pilachowski is part of a team that discovered that RZ Piscium may be eating its own planets. To read the write-up by the IU Bloomington Newsroom, follow this link: IUB News. The NASA press release also includes an animation illustrating how planetary debris could cause the erratic variability in this star's brightness.
12/6/2017 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco received an honorable mention for the AAS Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize to support her participation in the 231st AAS Meeting in Washington DC in January 2018. This award provides graduate students and recent PhD recipients/postdocs within one year of receiving or receipt of their PhD a monetary prize to enable the oral presentation of their dissertation research. Maria's dissertation talk is titled: "Effects of Dynamical Evolution on Globular Clusters' Internal Kinematics."
11/16/2017 Professor Caty Pilachowski is serving as the Chair of the Advisory Committee for Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. The Committee provides advice and recommendations to the National Science Foundation's programs within the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, addressing policies and directions for achieving overall program excellence.
11/15/2017 Tonight is the last scheduled Kirkwood Open House Night for the 2017 calendar year. In all, 13 Wednesday night Open Houses were held in 2017 (despite the weather!), with an approximate attendance of 1460 people. We also hosted many daytime and evening tours of the observatory and nearly 590 people toured the historic observatory during IU Science Fest in October.
11/8/2017 Today's 5th Annual F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by Wendy Freedman (University of Chicago) on the topic of "Our Unexpected Universe." Prof Freedman will talk about how the universe is filled with dark matter that emits no light and with energy that permeates all of space, causing its expansion to speed up with time. She will also talk about how new giant telescopes that are planned for the next decade are likely to reveal more surprises.
11/7/2017 Former undergraduate and graduate student Dr. Annie Mejia visited Bloomington this week as a College of Arts and Sciences Luminary. She met with current students to share her experience in a successful career in public outreach and education. Her website snannie.com includes examples of some of the scientific exhibits she has designed and produced.
11/1/2017 The Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness in Spain has appointed Professor Caty Pilachowski as a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaris. The IAC, headquartered on Tenerife, operates astronomical observatories and facilities on the islands of Tenerife and La Palma in the Canary Islands.
10/24/2017 Professor Liese van Zee is a member of the US delegation to the International Telecommunication Union Working Party 7D (Radio Astronomy) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. These semi-annual meetings lay the foundation for international regulations of the radio spectrum.
10/21/2017 Astronomy undergraduate and graduate students and faculty enjoyed participating in this year's Science Fest at IU. Hundreds of visitors stopped in at our Hands-On Astronomy Room where they tried their hand at making comets, experimenting with infrared vision, and exploring a massive star cluster in virtual reality. Kids also enjoyed coloring a pocket solar system and spinning our solar system prize wheel. At Kirkwood Observatory, our visitors got a look at the historic 12" refracting telescope and viewed the sun through intermittent clouds. We hope our visitors enjoyed the day as much as we did!
10/16/2017 Graduate student Bobby Butler attended IAU Symposium 338 on Gravitational Wave Astrophysics in Baton Rouge, LA. His poster on "Dark Energy Survey Gravitational Wave Survey: Optical Follow-up of Gravitational Wave Events" was well received.
10/3/2017 IU is hosting the annual WIYN Board meeting this week. Representatives from all member instutitions are on campus to discuss new developments and future plans.
9/18/2017 Graduate student Maria Tiongco attended the 2017 conference "Modelling and observing dense stellar systems, being MODEST 17 Under Prague's Starry Skies" at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, during September 18-22, 2017, and presented a paper on "Dynamical evolution of tidally limited rotating star clusters."
9/5/2017 Former undergraduate student Willam P. Bowman published a paper titled "Photometric Detection of Multiple Populations in Globular Clusters Using Integrated Light" in the Astronomical Journal. The paper is based on work Will completed for his honors thesis at IU.
8/21/2017 IU Bloomington was in the path of the partial solar eclipse for nearly three hours this afternoon. The Office of Science Outreach (OSO) organized CelestFest, a solar eclipse viewing party, in the Conrad Prebys Ampitheather on campus. The OSO distributed a total of 10,000 solar eclipse viewers at the Ampitheater and other satellite locations on campus. Prior to the event, the Astronomy Department distributed nearly 1250 viewing glasses to many K-12 and not-for-profit organizations, helping prepare the local community for the eclipse.
8/1/2017 Undergraduate astronomy major Doryan Miller was an LSAMP research scholar during the summer working with Professor Caty Pilachowski on photometry of stars in globular clusters in the galactic bulge, using data from the Blanco DECam Bulge Survey. Doryan's work focused specifically on the globular cluster Messier 22.
7/1/2017 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco published a paper titled "Kinematical evolution of tidally limited star clusters: rotational properties" in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
6/30/2017 Our very own Professor Liese van Zee was interviewed by Wired Magazine's Sarah Scoles on the topic "Your Connected Devices are Screwing up Astronomy" . Professor van Zee was able to bring attention to a rather serious topic affecting radio astronomy while reaching a whole new audience through Wired's website. The article can be found at https://www.wired.com/story/your-connected-devices-are-screwing-up-astronomy/. Definitely worth a read.
6/26/2017 Graduate student Samantha Brunker received a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award for her poster "HST Imaging of the (Almost) Dark ALFALFA Source AGC 229385" presented at the 230th AAS meeting in Austin, Texas. Deep optical imaging with the WIYN 3.5-m telescope revealed an ultra-low surface brightness stellar component located at the center of the HI detection of this enigmatic galaxy. Their HST images resolved a stellar population that is dominated by older stars, contrary to expectations given the blue optical colors obtained from their ground-based photometry. Their new distance determination is substantially lower than earlier estimates, and shows that AGC 229385 is an extreme dwarf galaxy with one of the highest MHI/L ratios known.
6/26/2017 Samantha Brunker and Hannah Pagel have been awarded Indiana Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowships for 2017-2018 to support their dissertation research. Congratulations to Sam and Hannah!
6/1/2017 Current graduate student Owen Boberg published a paper titled "Internal Rotation in the Globular Cluster M53" in the Astrophysical Journal.
5/31/2017 Graduate student Zachary Maas published a paper titled "Phosphorus Abundances in FGK Stars" in the Astrophysical Journal.
3/30/2017 We just got news that our own Dr. Samir Salim has been recently admitted as a member to the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) International Science Development Team (ISDT) for the Early Universe, Galaxy Formation and the Intergalactic Matter. If you would like to read more about how Dr. Salim will be helping to plan and design what eventually will become the most advanced and powerful optical telescope on Earth, please visit the TMT website: http://www.tmt.org. Congratulations Dr. Salim!
3/28/2017 Our own Zack Maas has received a McCormick Science Grant for 2017. The McCormick Science Grant Fund was established by Dr. Charles O. McCormick III to support basic science research and to honor his grandfather and father. The College annually awards three grants of $2,500 each to the graduate student member of a faculty/graduate student team whose research, either proposed or in progress, is judged to be most creative, visionary, and innovative. Nicely done Zack!!
3/20/2017 Andrew Hayslip, graduating with a BA in Astronomy and Astrophysics in December 2016, has gotten a job with the new Discovery Channel Telescope. Andrew will be a telescope operator at the country's newest 4-m class telescope located in northern Arizona.
3/20/2017 Former Astronomy & Astrophysics undergraduate Chris Hayes was awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2017. The NSF fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated their potential for significant research achievements. Chris will be holding his 3-year fellowship at the University of Virginia, where he began his graduate career after graduating from IU in 2015. Chris's research focuses on understanding the populations of the most metal-deficient stars in the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, using a combination of their chemical composition, motions, and positions to learn about their origin and history of chemical enrichment.
2/28/2017 Our very own Bill Janesh has been awarded a Dissertation Research Fellowship by the College of Arts and Sciences for the 2017-2018 academic year. From the announcement: With this award the College recognizes the quality of your past graduate work and expresses the confidence of the College and your department in your promise as a developing scholar. It is our hope that the award will enable you to concentrate your efforts on your research and will provide maximum flexibility at this critical time in your career. Congratulations Bill!
2/24/2017 Congratulations to Maria Tiongco for winning the 2017-18 President's Diversity Dissertation Fellowship. The President's Diversity Dissertation Fellowship was established in 2014 to provide one year of support to advanced doctoral students who are completing Ph.D. dissertations. These are one time fellowships meant to offset a scholar's living expenses while completing the dissertation. Way to go Maria!!
2/1/2017 Recent graduate student Jamie Overbeek published a paper titled "The Gaia-ESO Survey: the inner disk, intermediate-age open cluster Trumpler 23" in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
1/4/2017 IU Astronomy is well represented at the 229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Grapevine, Texas. Presenting authors from IUB include current graduate student Karna Desai and undergraduate student Neil Bassett, and Professors Pilachowski and Vesperini during the week-long conference. In addition to posters on their scientific research, several poster presentations highlight educational and outreach initiatives underway at IUB.
1/1/2017 Professor Liese van Zee has received a NASA/ADAP grant for "An Extension of the EDGES Survey: Stellar Populations in Dark Matter Halos." The award supports analysis of multi-wavelength imaging observations to investigate the growth and evolution of the stellar component of a statistical sample of nearby galaxies.
12/1/2016 Current graduate student Zachary Maas published a paper titled "Chlorine Abundances in Cool Stars" in the Astronomical Journal.
11/20/2016 Recent undergraduate student Rashad Givens published a paper titled "The Abundance of Lithium in an ABG Star in the Globular Cluster M3 (NGC5272)" in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
11/16/2016 Current graduate student Karna Desai has received a Travel Award from the IU College of Arts & Sciences to support his participation in the American 229th Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Grapevine, Texas in January 2017. At the AAS meeting, Karna will give a presentation on his dissertation research entitled, "Migration of Gas Giant Planets in a Gravitationally Unstable Disk". Congrats Karna!!
11/12/2016 The IU Astronomy Department has decided to no longer require the Physics GRE as part of the admissions process for its graduate program.
11/9/2016 Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt will be giving a public talk on "The Accelerating Universe" today. Prof. Schmidt's visit to IU is part of an effort to build connections between IU and the Australian National University.
10/26/2016 Today's 4th Annual F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by Josh Winn (Princeton University) on the topic "Strange New Worlds". Professor Winn will talk about 'exoplanets', planets circling distant stars, explain the new technologies and techniques that were required to find these planets, and what kind of planets have been found. Josh Winn is a physicist and astronomer at Princeton University. His research goals are to explore the properties of planets around other stars, understand how planets form and evolve, and make progress on the age-old question of whether there are other planets capable of supporting life.
10/22/2016 The third annual IU Science Fest was held across campus today. In the Hands-on Astronomy room, visitors were able to make dry ice comets, model solar systems, explore the infrared spectrum with our new IR camera, and watch 3-d animations of globular clusters. We also conducted tours of the historic Kirkwood Observatory and Solar Lab, including observations of the moon through the Kirkwood telescope.
10/8/2016 The IU Astronomy club participated in the world-wide "Observe the Moon" night by hosting viewing parties on campus.
9/13/2016 Kathy Rhode received an NSF award for "A Systematic Search for Stars in Almost-Dark Galaxies." The award supports observations with the WIYN 3.5m telescope to investigate the optical properties of Ultra-Compact High Velocity Clouds and "Almost Dark" galaxies identified in the ALFALFA survey.
7/15/2016 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco received the AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy Raynor L. Duncombe Prize for Student Research and gave a talk about her research at the Division on Dynamical Astronomy meeting in Nashville, TN. More info about the prize can be found at: https://dda.aas.org/awards/duncombe
7/15/2016 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco published a paper titled, "Kinematical evolution of tidally limited star clusters: the role of retrograde stellar orbits" in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
7/14/2016 Current graduate student Emily Richards published a paper titled "Baryonic Distributions in Galaxy Dark Matter Halos - I. New Observations of Neutral and Ionized Gas Kinematics" in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
6/28/16 Graduate student Jeff Gerber received a Chambliss student poster award for his poster presentation at the 228th AAS meeting in San Diego, California. His award winning poster can be found on the wall on the 3rd Floor of Swain West along with a number of other posters from our talented researchers. Way to go Jeff! More on the Chambliss student poster awards: https://aas.org/posts/news/2016/06/chambliss-student-poster-awards-aas-228
6/1/2016 Recent graduate student Angela Van Sistine published a paper titled "The ALFALFA Halpha Survey I. Project Description and the Local Star-formation Rate Density from the Fall Sample" in the Astrophysical Journal.
6/1/2016 Current graduate student Owen Boberg published a paper titled "Chemical Abundances in NGC 5024 (M53): A Mostly First Generation Globular Cluster" in the Astrophysical Journal.
6/1/2016 Current graduate student Jamie Overbeek published a paper titled "New Neutron-capture Measurements in 23 Open Clusters. I. The r-Process" in the Astrophysical Journal.
5/12/2016 Astronomy Graduate Student Alec Hirschauer along with Professors John Salzer and Katherine Rhode published their findings on the galaxy nicknamed Leoncino, or "little lion". Leoncino contains the lowest level of heavy chemical elements or "metals," ever observed in a gravitationally bound system of stars. Congrats to our colleagues!. To read the write-up in the IU Bloomington Newsroom, follow this link: IUB News. To read the full study published in the Astrophysical Journal, follow this link: ALFALFA DISCOVERY OF THE MOST METAL-POOR GAS-RICH GALAXY KNOWN: AGC 198691
5/1/2016 Current graduate student Owen Boberg published a paper titled "Limitations of CN and CH Molecular Band Strengths at High Metallicities: A Case Study in NGC 6791" in the Astronomical Journal.
4/4/2016 Wonderful news! Our very own Maria Tiongco has been awarded this year's Matias L. Ochoada Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences. The fellowship is awarded to a high achieving graduate student to honor the memory of Matias L. Ochoada, a researcher at the IU Cyclotron Facility. To read more about the award: http://www.indiana.edu/~gradgrnt/matias-l-ochoada-fellowship/. To read more about Maria and her research: http://pages.iu.edu/~mtiongco/.
3/19/2016 Current graduate students organized and administered the astronomy competition of the Indiana State Science Olympiad tournament hosted at the IU Bloomington campus. Two divisions, middle school and high school, contended in astronomy-themed competitions with focus on topics such as stellar evolution and extra-solar planet formation.
3/8/2016 Associate Professor Liese van Zee was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award presented during the third annual Techie Women Have More conference. Prof. van Zee has mentored more than a dozen students including CEWiT's freshman research scholars, departmental honors students, Cox Research Scholars and STARS students. Congratulations Liese! To read more about the Mentor Awards and the Center of Excellence for Women in Technology (CEWiT): http://cewit.indiana.edu/news/Outstanding Mentor and Student Leadership Awards.shtml
2/18/2016 Assistant Professor Enrico Vesperini was one of the five IU assistant professors to be named \93Outstanding Junior Faculty Member\94 for the academic year 2015-16. Professor Vesperini joined the Astronomy department in 2012 with a focus on the formation and dynamical evolution of star clusters. Congratulations Enrico! To find out about more about the award : http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2016/02/outstanding-junior-faculty.shtml. To find out more about Professor Vesperini: http://www.astro.indiana.edu/faculty/vesperini.shtml
1/29/2016 Graduate student Owen Boberg received an Honorable Mention in the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Chambliss Student Award competition for his poster presentation at the 227th AAS meeting in Kissimmmee, Florida. Congratulations to Owen! More on the awards: http://aas.org/posts/news/2016/01/chambliss-student-poster-awards-aas-227
1/8/2016 IU Astronomy is well represented at the 227th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Kissimmee, FL. Emily Richards presented her dissertation talk on "Baryonic Distributions in Galaxy Dark Matter Halos" on Tuesday and Jamie Overbeek gave her dissertation talk on "Neutron Capture Abundances in the Milky Way: New Insights from Open Clusters" on Wednesday. Four current graduate students and one current undergraduate student presented their results during poster sessions during the week long conference.
12/15/2015 Recent undergraduate student Chris Hayes published a paper titled " Properties of the Old Open Cluster Czernik 30" in the Astronomical Journal.
12/2/2015 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco published a paper titled "Velocity Anisotropy in Tidally Limited Star Clusters" in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
12/2/2015 Today's 3rd Annual F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by Kathryn Johnston on the topic "Galactic Cannibalism." Kathryn Johnston is the Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University. She is an astronomer who studies how galaxies form and evolve, what they contain and how they are structured. She describes some of these interestes in a recent article in the December 2014 issues of Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/destroyed-dwarf-galaxies-reveal-milky-way-s-history/
11/3/2015 As vice-chair of the Committee on Radio Frequencies, Associate Professor Liese van Zee is co-author of "Handbook of Frequency Allocations and Spectrum Protection for Scientific Uses: Second Edition," which provides information to the scientific and telecommunications communities regarding use of the electromagnetic spectrum for radio astronomy and earth remote sensing applications.
10/24/2015 The second annual IU Science Fest was held across campus today. In the Hands-on Astronomy room, visitors were able to make dry ice comets, model solar systems, and explore the infrared spectrum with our new IR camera. We also conducted tours of the historic Kirkwood Observatory and Solar Lab, though the wet and cloudy weather prevented more hands-on demonstrations. A scale model of the solar system guided visitors to the Observatory through the fall foliage in Dunn Woods.
8/24/2015 Associate Professor Liese van Zee will be spending most of the fall semester at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) sponsored by the Helena Kluyver visitor programme. She will be collaborating with former IU undergraduate Betsey Adams and working on the analysis of neutral hydrogen observations of nearby galaxies.
8/18/2015 Current graduate student Alec Hirschauer published a paper titled "Metal Abundances of KISS Galaxies. V. Nebular Abundances of 15 Intermediate Luminosity Star-forming Galaxies" in the Astronomical Journal.
7/1/2015 Current undergraduate Miranda Barnett's research experiences in the Astronomy Department are highlighted on the University's web page. [Read more] A video of her discussing her research is available here.
5/28/2015 Congratulations to current graduate students Emily Richards and Jamie Overbeek for earning Graduate Fellowships from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium!
5/22/2015 Congratulations to current undergraduate student Miranda Barnett for earning an Undergraduate Scholarship from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium!
5/14/2015 Current graduate student Owen Boberg published a paper titled "Chemical Abundances in NGC 5053: A Very Metal-Poor and Dynamically Complex Globular Cluster" in the Astrophysical Journal.
4/30/2015 Congratulations to Professor Stuart Mufson, one of the seven project managers for the NOvA project, as the $247.0M NOvA Project has been recognized by the Department of Energy with an Award of Excellence for successfully constructing the nation's premier neutrino experiment.
4/27/2015 Professor John Salzer received funding for "Hα Dots: Searching for Extremely Metal-Poor Galaxies" from the Faculty Research Support Program. The FRSP grants are designed to support the development of innovative and transformative research ideas into projects that can be submitted for consideration of funding by external grant programs.
4/14/2015 Current graduate student Emily Richards published a paper titled "Baryonic distributions in the dark matter halo of NGC 5005" in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
3/31/2015 Former IU Undergraduate Taylor Tobin was awarded an NSF Predoctoral Fellowship! She is currently a graduate student at the University of Illinois. Current graduate students Jeff Gerber and Zack Maas were both recognized with honorable mention!
3/22/2015 IU Astronomy Club hosted a solar viewing at Wonderlab in conjunction with their Jedi Science Weekend.
3/21/2015 Current graduate students organized and administered the astronomy competition of the Indiana State Science Olympiad tournament hosted at the IU Bloomington campus. Two divisions, middle school and high school, contended in astronomy-themed competitions with focus on topics such as stellar evolution and extra-solar planet formation.
3/11/2015 Professor Caty Pilachowski, the Daniel Kirkwood Chair, has been recognized as one of the leaders on campus that have helped shape the future of IU Bloomington. Her story is available here.
3/10/2015 Current graduate student Steven Janowiecki published a paper titled "(Almost) Dark HI Sources in the ALFALFA Survey: The Intriguing Case of HI1232+20" in the Astrophysical Journal.
3/4/2015 Current graduate student Maria Tiongco presented a poster on "Lifetimes and Kinematics of Rotating Star Clusters" at the international conference 'Modeling and Observing Dense Stellar Systems' held in Concepcion Chile.
3/1/2015 Congratulations to current graduate student Emily Richards for earning a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences! Dissertation Year Fellowships are intended to assist advanced graduate students to make significant progress on their dissertations, since they will have the opportunity to focus full-time on their dissertation research and writing.
2/23/2015 Current graduate student Alec Hirschauer's dissertation research is highlighted by NOAO in their March 2015 newsletter. [Read more]
2/1/2015 Recent graduate student Maria Cordero published a paper titled "Light-element Abundances of Giant Stars in the Globular Cluster M71 (NGC 6838)" in the Astrophysical Journal.
2/1/2015 Recent graduate student Nathalie Haurberg published a paper titled "Oxygen Abundance Measurements of SHIELD Galaxies" in the Astrophysical Journal.
1/24/2015 Current graduate student Jamie Overbeek published her first paper titled "NGC 7789: an Open Cluster Case Study" in the Astronomical Journal.
1/8/2015 IU Astronomy is well represented at the 225th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA. Angela Van Sistine presented her 15 minute dissertation talk on "The ALFALFA Halpha Survey" on Monday and Jessica Windschitl Dowell presented her dissertation talk on "Photometric and Kinematic Studies of Extragalactic Globular Cluster Systems" on Tuesday. Five current graduate students and three current undergraduate students are presenting posters on their research. In addition, five recent graduate students, seven recent undergraduate students, and two current undergraduate students are in attendance.
12/7/2014 Today's 2nd Annual F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by Martha P. Haynes on the topic "Not all Galaxies are the Same: What a Galaxy's Appearance Tells Us about its Life History." Martha Haynes is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University. Recognized internationally for her research on the structure of the universe and galaxy evolution, Martha Haynes is also an IU graduate. For her research, she uses observational data from a variety of telescopes and instruments, including both imaging and spectroscopic data from the optical, infrared, and radio regions of the electromagentic spectrum. [Read More]
11/1/2014 Recent graduate student Jonathan Hargis published a paper titled "Globular Cluster Systems and Their Host Galaxies: Comparison of Spatial Distributions and Colors" in the Astrophysical Journal.
10/25/2014 Visitors to the IU Science Fest today were able to make comets, pocket solar systems, and play with an infrared camera in the Hands-on Astronomy room. Astronomy was also well represented at the 1st Annual IU Science Slam, which was won by Associate Professor Liese van Zee. Tours of the historic Kirkwood Observatory and a campus-wide solar-system walk encouraged visitors to enjoy the excellent fall weather and the beautiful campus. [Read More]
10/1/2014 Current graduate student Steven Janowiecki published a paper titled "The Unique Structural Parameters of the Underlying Host Galaxies in Blue Compact Dwarfs" in the Astrophysical Journal.
8/1/2014 Catherine Pilachowski and Scott Michael received an NSF award "Collaborative Research: A Panchomatic Imaging Survey of the Galactic Bulge" in collaboration with researchers at UCLA, the University of Michigan/Dearborn, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The award supports investigations into the origin and history of star formation in the Galactic bulge using the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4m telescope at the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile. Indiana University is supporting the data pipeline, archiving, and distribution.
7/10/2014 Recent graduate student and current postdoctoral scholar Kate Barnes published a paper titled "New Insights on the Formation and Assembly of M83 from Deep Near-Infrared Imaging" in the Astrophysical Journal.
6/6/2014 Congratulations to current graduate student Emily Richards for earning a Graduate Fellowship from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium!
6/1/14 Current graduate student Jessica Dowell published a paper titled "Beyond the Brim of the Hat: Kinematics of Globular Clusters out to Large Radii in the Sombrero Galaxy" in the Astronomical Journal.
4/30/2014 Congratulations to Angela Van Sistine for being awarded a McCormick Science Grant. The grant of $2,500 is intended to provide support for her while conducting research in collaboration with Professor John Salzer. Charles O. McCormick III, M.D., established the McCormick Science Grant Fund to honor his father and grandfather and to support basic science research. In creating the fund Dr. McCormick asked the College to identify the graduate student member of a faculty/graduate student team whose research is judged most creative, visionary, and innovative.
4/10/2014 Current graduate student Cameron Pace published a paper titled "Satellites of Radio AGN in SDSS: Insights into AGN Triggering and Feedback" in the Astrophysical Journal.
4/7/2014 Congratulations to current undergraduate student Christian Hayes for earning a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship! [Read More]
4/1/2014 Current undergraduate student Christian Hayes published his first paper titled "Radial Velocities of Three Poorly Studied Clusters and the Kinematics of Open Clusters" in the Astronomical Journal.
3/15/2014 Congratulations to current graduate student Steven Janowiecki for earning a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences! Dissertation Year Fellowships are intended to assist advanced graduate students to make significant progress on their dissertations, since they will have the opportunity to focus full-time on their dissertation research and writing.
1/1/2014 Current graduate student Maria Cordero published a paper titled "Detailed Abundances for a Large Sample of Giant Stars in the Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae (NGC 104)" in the Astrophysical Journal.
12/1/2013 Current graduate student Kristie Nault published a paper titled "The Abundance of Flourine in the Hyades, NGC 752, and M67" in the Astronomical Journal.
12/1/2013 Recent graduate student Ryan Maderak published a paper titled "WIYN Open Cluster Study. LVII. Oxygen Abundances of Solar-type Dwarfs in the Hyades and NGC 752" in the Astronomical Journal.
10/26/2013 Over 1200 people visited campus today to participate in science open houses in Physics, Astronomy, Geology, Mathematics, and Chemistry. Highlights included building your own comet in the Hands-on Astronomy room and tours of the historic Kirkwood Observatory. [Read More]
10/14/2013 Today's inaugural F. K. Edmondson Astronomy Public Lecture will be given by David Morrison on the topic "What would happen if a large asteroid collided with the Earth?" David Morrison is a senior scientist at NASA Ames and is largely considered one of the founders of the field of astrobiology. The Edmondson Lecture Series has been established to honor the memory of Professor Frank Kelly Edmondson, a faculty member of the Deparment of Astronomy from 1937 until his retirement in 1983. Professor Edmondson was Chair of the department from 1944 until 1978 and is remembered not only for his contributions to the study of asteroids but also for his dedication and service to IU and the astronomical community. [Read More]
9/20/2013 Recent graduate students Kate Barnes and Jayce Dowell published a paper titled "The Effects of Episodic Star Formation on the FUV-NUV Colors of Star Forming Regions in Outer Disks" in the Astrophysical Journal.
9/1/13 Recent graduate student Tad Baptista published a paper titled "Radiation Hardness Studies of InGaAs and Si Photodiodes at 30, 52, & 98 MeV and Fluences to 5 x 1011 Protons/cm2" in the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation.
8/1/2013 Professor Pilachowski received a 5-year S-STEM award from the National Science Foundation: "Building Community in Science and Mathematics." The award both provides scholarship funds for majors in astronomy, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics, and facilitates the development of new programs in departments to engage students in their disciplines and to provide them with information and preparation for careers in STEM fields. [Read More]
6/6/2013 Congratulations to the numerous Chamblis Student Award winners from IU! Current graduate students Jessica Windschitl, Angela Van Sistine, and Emily Richards and current undergraduate student Christian Hayes were honored for their poster presentations at the 222nd AAS Meeting in Indianapolis, IN. Current graduate students Zachary Catlin and Nathalie Haurberg and current undergraduate Daniel Wavle were recognized as honorable mentions for their poster presentations as well. [Read More about IU astronomers and their significant presence at the 222nd meeting of the AAS]
5/1/2013 Congratulations to current graduate students Angie Van Sistine and Alec Hirschauer for earning graduate fellowships from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium!
4/15/2013 Congratulations to current graduate student Jonathan Hargis for earning a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences! Dissertation Year Fellowships are intended to assist advanced graduate students to make significant progress on their dissertations, since they will have the opportunity to focus full-time on their dissertation research and writing.
4/7/2013 Congratulations to current graduate student Owen Boberg for earning a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship!
3/1/2013 Current graduate student Nathalie Haurberg published a paper titled "Metal Abundances of 12 Dwarf Irregulars from the ADBS Survey" in the Astrophysical Journal.
