Friday, December 30, 2016

Astronomers of Color Presenting at the 229th AAS

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of astronomers of color who will be presenting at the 229th AAS meeting, in Grapevine, Texas. Many of the undergrads were students in the Harvard Aztlán and Banneker InstitutesTAURUSNACLamatCAMPAREMaria Mitchell and various REU and bridge programs. Folks applying to REUs, graduate programs or postdocs are marked with a “*". Please be sure to stop by these scientists' posters and talks and hear about their exceptional research. If you plan on recruiting them to your institution, know that competition will be fierce!

Rationale
We, the members of the AAS Committee for the Status of Minorities in Astronomy, place an emphasis on the self-evident truth that all people are created equal. This is to say that any two groups of people, no matter how they are classified, if given the same choices and opportunities in life, will act in such a way as to better their lives. Based on this truth, if two groups of people are observed to experience disparate outcomes in society, this must be the result of extrinsic, rather than intrinsic factors. In astronomy, white people (primarily cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual men) are overrepresented in the field with respect to people of color. Since we believe that all people are created equal in their potential and desire to better their understanding of the Universe, this outcome must be the result of factors extrinsic to and individual's or group's race (as well as their sexuality, gender, gender expression or mental/cognitive/physical ability). These extrinsic factors fall under the rubric of systemic racism (and other axes of oppression), and our efforts to promote people of color is part of our greater effort to counteract the effects of racism in our society. Thus, we are not attempting to help people because of their race, but rather we are helping to push back against the racism that would otherwise maintain the status quo and impede intellectual progress in our field of science. 
—Wednesday—

106.05. DEdicated MONitor of EXotransits and Transients (DEMONEXT): Low-Cost Robotic and Automated Telescope for Followup of Exoplanetary Transits and Transients
10:50 AM - 11:00 AM; Grapevine B (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, The Ohio State University

113.01. Limits on Intergalactic Dust during Reionization
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Grapevine 1 
Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University (Harvard Future Faculty Leaders Fellowship)

114.05. Measuring the extent of x-ray emitting hot gas haloes around elliptical galaxies
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Grapevine 2
Postdoctoral Fellow, NASA Ames Research Center

117.01. The Tumultuous Lives and Deaths of Stars
11:40 AM - 12:30 PM; Texas A (Oral Presentation - Plenary Talk)
Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University

122.05. DeepLensing: The Use of Deep Machine Learning to Find Strong Gravitational Lenses in Astronomical Surveys
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Texas D
Postdoctoral Fellow, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

127.06. Single Star HII Regions in nearby LEGUS Galaxies
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Texas 1 (Oral Presentation)
Undergraduate Student, Hamilton College (NAC)

131.01D. Calibrating the Age-Rotation-Activity Relation in Low-Mass Stars: Chromospheric and Coronal Activity in the 500 Myr-old M37 Open Cluster
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine 1 (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, Columbia University

132.02. GBT CO observations of two ACT dusty star-forming galaxies
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine 2 (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, Rutgers University

137.04 The Arecibo Environment Galaxy Survey: The NGC 2577/UGC 4375-galaxy pair
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Wellesley College

139.03. Experimentally Determined Binding Energies of Astrophysically Relevant Hydrocarbons in Pure and H2O-Layered Ices
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Princeton University

140.02. Update on the Citizen CATE Experiment: Indonesia to 2017
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, South Caroline State University (NAC)

*Dany V. Atallah
141.03. Gravitational Wave Detection of Compact Binaries Through Multivariate Analysis
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student CSU Long Beach (U Florida IREU / Cal-Bridge)

*Jacqueline Antwi-Danso
145.07. Feeding the Milky Way: Properties of the Leading Arm of the Magellanic Stream
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Texas Christian University

145.18. Gas Stripping in the Simulated Pegasus Galaxy
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (Aztlán Institute / UCI SURF / Cal-Bridge)

146.17. Searching for Wide, Planetary-Mass Companions in Archival Spitzer/IRAC Data
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, The University of Texas at Austin

Samavarti Gallardo
145.26. Comparison between high and low star forming sides of dwarf irregular galaxies with asymmetrical distributions of star formation.
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal State LA (NAU REU / CAMPARE)

146.29. Techniques for Constraining the Population of Small Close-in Planets Around Subgiants
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Harvard University

146.33. How many habitable planets can we detect around nearby M dwarfs, and are they really habitable?
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, North Carolina A&T State University (Harvard Banneker Institute)

147.03. Recovering Neptune 170 Years After its Initial Discovery
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Yale University (2015 Harvard Banneker Institute)

148.02. Calculating the Flux Density Decay of Cas A with LWA1
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student,  CUNY Hunter College (NAC)

148.07. Measuring the Symmetry of Supernova Remnants in the Radio
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, The Ohio State University

148.08. Behind the Curtain: Revealing the Nebular Influence on X-ray Emission from Planetary Nebulae
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Research Scientist, Harvard University

*Teresa Panurach
150.05. Understanding the IGM Through the Use of a Lensed Quasar
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CUNY Hunter College

Manisha Shrestha
151.11. Polarization signatures of bow shocks: A diagnostic tool to constrain the properties of stellar winds and ISM
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, University of Denver

152.10. Evidence for Binarity in Kepler Observations of the Pulsating RV Tau Variable DF Cygni
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Fisk-Vanderbilt

Alyssa D. Sokol
153.08. An LMT/AzTEC 1.1 mm Survey of Dense Cores in the Monoceros R2 Giant Molecular Cloud
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst

153.09. High Resolution 33 GHz Observations of Embedded Star Formation in NGC 6240
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Fisk-Vanderbilt (NAC)

*Alia Wofford
153.16. How Does Dense Molecular Gas Contribute to Star Formation in the Starburst Galaxy NGC 2146?
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Elizabeth City State University (NAC)

154.13. Modeling the spatial distribution of fragments formed from tidally disrupted stars
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Harvard University (Harvard Banneker Institute)

154.14. Understanding Activity Cycles of Solar Type Stars with Kepler
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, University of Washington (Harvard Banneker Institute)

154.20. Investigating the Common Origins of Stars Using Dynamical Modeling
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Villanova University (TAURUS)

155.19. Design Considerations for the Installation of an Iodine (I2) Cell onto TRES
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Harvard University (Harvard Banneker Institute)

155.21. Camera Development for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CUNY Hunter College

—Thursday—

202.02. Formation of Hazes & Clouds on Tidally Locked Hot-Jupiters: Insights from Size Distribution Dynamics
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Texas A (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, UC Santa Cruz

216.02. On the Radial Abundance Gradients of Europium and Oxygen of Stars Inside the Disk of a Simulated Milky Way
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine B (Oral Presentation)
Undergraduate Student, UC Santa Cruz (Lamat)

*Md. Tanveer Karim
216.08. Probing the Southern Fermi Bubble in Ultraviolet Absorption
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Dallas 6 (Oral Presentation)
Undergraduate Student, University of Rochester (Maria Mitchell REU)

Sinclaire Manning
222.06. Photometric Redshifts for High Resolution Radio Galaxies in the SuperCLASS Field
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine A (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, The University of Texas at Austin

223.06. A Numerical Study on the Streams of Star Debris after Tidal Disruption
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine B (Oral Presentation)
Undergraduate Student, UC Santa Cruz (Lamat)

230.04D. Elucidating the True Binary Fraction of VLM Stars and Brown Dwarfs with Spectral Binaries
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine 1 (Oral Presentation - Dissertation Talk)
Graduate Student, UC San Diego

*Manuel Paul
238.35. An Exploration of Software-Based GNSS Signal Processing at Multiple Frequencies
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CSU San Bernardino (MIT Haystack REU / Cal-Bridge)

240.08. Too Cool for Stellar Rules: A Bayesian Exploration of Trends in Ultracool Magnetism
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Associate Professor, CUNY Hunter College and AMNH

*Russell Van Linge
240.12. Tuning Into Brown Dwarfs: Long-Term Radio Monitoring of Two Very Low Mass Dwarfs
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Palomar College (UCSD STARS / CAMPARE)

240.14. Characterization of Low-mass K2 planet hosts using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, University of Puerto Rico (Harvard Banneker Institute)

Jean Paul Ventura
240.16. Investigating the Spectroscopic Variability and Magnetic Activity of Photometrically Variable M Dwarfs in SDSS
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CUNY Hunter College

240.17. Toward a Comprehensive Sample of VLM Chemical Abundances with APOGEE
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Morehouse College

240.18. Modeling Stellar Parameters for High Resolution Late-M and Early-L Dwarf SDSS/APOGEE Spectra
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, UC San Diego 

240.19. Characterizing the Resolved M6 Dwarf Twin LP 318-218AB
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Universidad de Guanajuato (México)

*Sanaea C. Rose
243.08. Long-term Accretion Variations of the Magnetic Cataclysmic Variable Star QQ Vulpecula
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Wellesley College (Maria Mitchell REU)

John A. Lewis
244.03. Transit probabilities for debris around white dwarfs
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Harvard University

245.07. Using Transmission Spectroscopy to Determine the Rotation Rate of HD 189733b
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Columbia University

245.08. Determining Vsin(i) of Young Planet-hosting Stars
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Florida International University (TAURUS)

*Noah I. Rivera
245.16. Exoplanet Transit Analysis of KIC 8462852
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CSU San Bernardino (Northwestern CIERA REU / Cal-Bridge)

245.17. A Search for Host Stars of Free-Floating Planetary Mass Objects
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Rice University (TAURUS)

*Luis E. Nuñez
245.21. Small Friends of Hot Jupiters
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (Harvard Banneker & Aztlán Institute / SAO REU / Cal-Bridge)

Winonah Ojaneh
245.25. The effect of stellar radiation on exoplanet atmospheric heating and mass loss
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, College of St. Scholastica

246.02. Using Quasar Pairs to put Constraints on Cosmological Parameters
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Recent Graduate, University of the Pacific (Harvard Banneker Institute)

246.05. Galaxy Interaction in Overdense Environments
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (TAURUS)

247.02. Optical Observations and Modeling of a Possible Black Hole HMXB and Cygnus X-1 Progenitor
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Harvard University

Evan H. Nunez
250.07. New quasar surveys with WIRO: Searching for high redshift (z~6) quasar candidates
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, El Camino College (U Wyoming REU / CAMPARE)

250.23. Statistical Analysis of Quasar Light Curves from Pan-STARRS1
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CUNY Hunter College

—Friday—

310.01. Using Disk Eclipsing Systems to Understand Planet Formation and Evolution
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Texas 4 (Oral Presentation)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University

314.01. The AstroPAL Starter Pack: How to Create a Grad Mentoring Program That Fosters Equity and Inclusion in Your Department
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Dallas 6 (Oral Presentation)
Recent PhD, Georgia State University

320.01. Upgrades to MINERVA control software
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Texas D (Oral Presentation)
Graduate Student, Harvard University (2015 Harvard Banneker Institute)

321.01. Quantifying the Effects of Gas-Rich Flyby Encounters on Galaxy Evolution
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine A (Oral Presentation)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University

327.05D. Searching for the Youngest Protostellar Disks and Earliest Signs of Planet Formation
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM; Grapevine 1 (Oral Presentation - Dissertation Talk)
Graduate Student, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

339.03. Non-Equilibrium Ionization Modeling of Coronal Mass Ejections
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CSU San Marcos (Harvard Banneker Institute / Harvard Solar REU)

Uriel Rodea
340.15. Properties of Low Metallicity Molecular Clouds: A 0.3 Parsec Resolution Map of SMC B1 #1
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CSU San Marcos (UCSD STARS / CAMPARE)

340.17. Discovering the Lowest Metallicty z<1 Galaxies
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, UC Santa Cruz (Lamat)

Matthew Melendez
343.03. The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Optical Extension for Neutron Capture Elements
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Texas Christian University

*Derrick Carr
343.14. Deep WIYN Imaging of the Globular Cluster System of the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 3607
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Haverford College (Maria Mitchell REU)

344.24. Determination of the Fundamental Properties of the Eclipsing Binary V541 Cygni
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

345.03. An ALMA Survey of Planet Forming Disks in Rho Ophiuchu
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

345.19. Chemistry of protostellar envelopes and disks: computational testing of 2D abundances
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, CSU Los Angeles

346.13. Evolution of the BCG in Disturbed Galaxy Clusters
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Princeton University

347.06. Investigating the Initial Mass Function with Increased Redshift
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Columbia University (TAURUS)

*Tarini Konchady
347.14. Investigating the Metallicity Evolution of Sub-damped Lyman alpha Systems
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Johns Hopkins University (Maria Mitchell REU)

347.17. Quantitative Morphology Measures in Galaxies: Ground-Truthing from Simulations
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Assistant Professor, University of Florida

347.36. Kinematics of Galaxy Mergers in The FIRE Simulation
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (Harvard Aztlán Institute / CAMPARE / Cal-Bridge)

347.37. Galaxy merger time-scales in the Illustris Simulation
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (Harvard Aztlán Institute / CAMPARE)

Muhammad Wally
347.56. A Study of E+A Galaxies Through SDSS-MaNGA Integral Field Spectroscopy
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Xavier University of Louisiana

*Tharindu K. Jayasinghe
340.08. The Milky Way Project: Mapping star formation in our home Galaxy, one click at a time
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (CAMPARE)

*Don Dixon
340.09. The Milky Way Project: A Citizen Science Catalog of Infrared Bow Shock Nebulae
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly Pomona (CAMPARE / Cal-Bridge)

Matthew Melendez
343.03. The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Optical Extension for Neutron Capture Elements
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Graduate Student, Texas Christian University
343.23. Star Clusters within FIRE
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, CSU Dominguez Hills (Harvard Aztlán Institute / CAMPARE / Cal-Bridge)

345.18. Understanding Gas-Phase Ammonia Chemistry in Protoplanetary Disks
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Yale University (Harvard Banneker Institute)

—Saturday—

403.02. Light Curves as Predictors of Good Radial Velocity Planet Search Targets in New Stellar Domains
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Texas D
Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University 

410.02. Near-infrared absolute magnitudes of Type Ia Supernovae
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM; Fort Worth 6 (Oral Presentation)
Postdoctoral Fellow,  Harvard University

Nicholas Duong
424.04. Shape Modeling and Boulder Mapping of Asteroid 1992 UY4
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student University of Louisville (SETI REU)

*Stefenie N. Minto
425.11. Extra Solar Planet Science With a Non Redundant Mask
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, University of Maryland Eastern Shore (NAC)

427.08. Bar Evolution and Bar Properties from Disc Galaxies in the Early Universe
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Spelman College

431.04. Searching for Magnetar SGR 0755-2933
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Recent Graduate, Green Bank Telescope

435.01. Revisiting the Trend of Debris Disks with regards to the Improved Ages of Early-Type Stars
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM; Longhorn D (Poster)
Undergraduate Student, Howard University


Contact: Prof. Jorge Moreno, CSMA Chair (csmachairmoreno AT gmail.com)