Kendall Sullivan (@kendall_sull) is a research assistant at Lowell Observatory, in Flagstaff, AZ. Her research currently focuses on star-disk interactions in young binary stars, especially the various weird ways material can accrete onto young binaries, and how evolving in a binary affects young stars’ evolution. Before working at Lowell, Kendall received her BS in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she studied the magnetic fields of edge-on spiral galaxies and gaseous companions to starbursting dwarf galaxies before discovering how cool young stars are. In August, Kendall will be moving to the Astronomy PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin. Kendall currently spends most of the time she’s not working on her own research working on other people’s research, but outside of the office she enjoys cooking, drinking good beer, and picking up heavy things (and setting them back down).
binary stars
Introducing Katie Breivik
Katie Breivik is a finishing phd student at Northwestern University and is also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). Her thesis research focuses on binary evolution and compact binary populations. In particular, she likes to think about what can be learned from combining the results of large-scale electromagnetic surveys like Gaia and future gravitational wave catalogs from LISA. To do this, she generates synthetic Milky Way compact binary populations using several different binary evolution models which can be compared to current and future observed populations.
When she is not running binary population synthesis codes, she likes to explore the Chicago brewery scene or watch RuPaul’s Drag Race with her two cats, Margot and Richie.
Reintroducing JJ Eldridge
JJ Eldridge (@astro_jje) is a theoretical astrophysics who studied for their PhD at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Then worked as a post-doc in Paris, Belfast and then returned to Cambridge. In 2011 they became a lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Their research interest involve stars (especially binaries!), galaxies, supernovae and study these across the Universe, from our own Sun to those at the edge of the observable Universe. They are co-PI on the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) code that was created to facilitate their research.
JJ is a passionate and effective teacher all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate study. They also work to increase how equitable and inclusivity of academia.
They are also a hoopy frood who loves science fiction in all forms (books, TV series, movies and computer games) and they also always know where their towel is.
astrotweeps 