Introducing Adina Feinstein

Hi! My name is Adina Feinstein, and I just finished my undergraduate degree in astrophysics at Tufts University and will continue my education next year at U of Chicago. My research experiences range from galaxy evolution to correcting for gravitational lensing to aging stars and characterizing exoplanets. I hope to use my time on Astrotweeps to talk about my research, the graduate school application process, and offer advice to those who wish to pursue astronomy in the future. Outside of academia, I’m a bake-aholic, love to crochet, and enjoy writing the occasional short story!

 

Advertisements

Introducing Mary Beth Laychak

Mary Beth Laychak is the Outreach Program Manager at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Mary Beth has an undergraduate degree in astronomy and astrophysics from Penn State University and a masters degree in educational technology from San Diego State.  Her passions include astronomy, sharing astronomy with the public and astronomy based crafts.

(Re)introducing Andy Rivkin

Andy is a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD, with his research focusing on the composition of asteroids. In particular, he is interested in those asteroids that have evidence of water or organic materials in them, detectable in their infrared reflectance spectrum. This pursuit has led to studies of asteroids all over the inner solar system, from dwarf planets to objects that can fit inside a sports stadium.

In addition to observational work, Andy has been active in the broader near-Earth object community, serving as a team member in several efforts to understand and report the impact hazard we face and how to lessen it, including serving as Investigation Lead for the DART mission scheduled to conduct a planetary defense demonstration in 2022. Finally, Andy is the Principal Investigator of the MANTIS mission concept, which if selected by NASA will conduct an asteroid tour in the 2020s.

The other 51 weeks of the year, you can find Andy at @asrivkin.

Introducing Saramoira Shields

Saramoira Shields (@mathematigal) is an engineer working for the Space Systems Design Studio at Cornell University. The SSDS is a multifaceted research lab, with active projects in small-scale satellite design, rover design, interstellar and inter-orbit navigation, flux pinning and and non-contact actuation. Previously, she has worked for the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source, as well as for the Cornell Astronomy Instrumentation Group, on the ARCoIRIS ad ZEUS-2 spectrographs. She started out in pure mathematics, and still noodles around in it from time to time. She also loves ultramarathoning, distance hiking, dragon boating and spending quality time with her two cats, Parsec and Ligo.

Introducing Charlotte Angus

Charlotte Angus (@c_r_angus) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, where she works on supernovae found within the Dark Energy Survey (@theDESSurvey). In particular, she is interested in Superluminous Supernovae, a rare class of supernovae that are extremely bright – around 10 to 100 times brighter than “normal” supernovae, and are visible for months at a time. The sheer amount of energy required to drive these luminous explosions has begun to challenge supernova models and our curruent understanding of their underlying physics. Charlotte hopes to shed some light on these brilliant explosions by studying the properties of the supernovae themselves, and also the properties of the galaxies from which they originate. This may provide a better picture of what type of stars make these transients, and how they exploded.

Charlotte has been slowly migrating to warmer climates throughout her academic career, first obtaining her MPhys at the University of Sheffield in 2013, then moving to the midlands to complete her PhD at the University of Warwick in 2017, and now she resides in sunny Southampton! Although she’s still a yorkshire girl at heart, occasionally forgetting to use “the” in conversation. Outside of research, Charlotte enjoys long distance running and triathlon, fuelled by the insane amount of cakes she bakes between races.

Introducing Harriet Brettle

Harriet Brettle is a Planetary Sciences graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. She is the Strategic Partnerships Team coordinator of the Space Generation Advisory Council, supporting its mission to represent students and young professionals to the United Nations, space agencies, industry, and academia. Harriet has a keen interest in public engagement with space science, interactions between different fields relevant to space exploration, and the future of new space economy. 

(Re)Introducing Michele Bannister

Dr Michele Bannister (@astrokiwi) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Director’s Outreach Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom. An expert in the discovery and characterization of minor planets in the Solar System, she has been involved in the discovery of more than eight hundred new minor planets that orbit beyond Neptune. Originally from New Zealand, Bannister has worked at institutes in Australia, the US, and Canada. She was honoured in 2017 by the International Astronomical Union with asteroid (10463) Bannister.