Call for Nominations: AAS Site Visit Team (Deadline February 28th)

From: Alicia Aarnio [anaarnio at uncg dot edu], Nicole Cabrera Salazar
[ncs at movebold dot ly], Stuart Vogel, Sheryl Bruff, KeShawn Ivory, Adam
Christensen, and Nancy Morrison [nancy dot morrison at utoledo dot edu] (the AAS SVOC)

The AAS Climate Site Visit program is getting under way. At the invitation of a
department's chair, a three-person site visit team will spend a day and a half
with the department, conduct interviews in order to assess the climate, and
draft a report. Departments will benefit by receiving constructive feedback from
an unbiased team of neutral, highly-qualified peers.

We are now assembling a pool of talented, accomplished people to conduct the site visits, from which a team of three people will be chosen, based on availability, for each site visit. We envision that each site visit team will consist of a senior astronomer, another astronomer of a different identity from that of the senior astronomer, and a specialist in human resources, diversity, or another relevant area.

Those performing this service will make a major contribution toward advancing
equity and inclusion in astronomy. There will be a modest honorarium for each
team member for each visit, and we expect that this experience will be
professionally valuable for anyone who has or aspires to a leadership position.

We invite nominations or self-nominations to the site visit team pool via this
questionnaire: http://bit.ly/sitevisit-team

The deadline to be considered for inclusion in the 2019 SVT pool

is February 28th, 2019. Later applications will be considered for future SVT pool.

Please don't hesitate to contact the SVOC (see the From: list of this message)
if you have questions about the site visit team pool.

People of Color Presenting at AAS 233

CSMA is proud to highlight presenters at the January 2019 AAS meeting who identify as People of Color.  Please direct any additions, corrections, and feedback to astronomyincolor [at] gmail.com

** Indicates that this person is applying for the Next Level (grad school, postdocs, etc)

Monday, January 7

Talks

** Bryan Terrazas (University of Michigan)
Graduate student
106.04D: The Role of Black Hole Feedback in Suppressing Star Formation in Central Galaxies

** Ekta Patel (University of Arizona)
Graduate student
106.06D: Revisiting the Dynamical History of the Local Group in the Era of High Precision Astrometry 

Aomawa Shields (UC Irvine)
Faculty
103.07: Hydrohalite Salt-albedo Feedback Could Cool M-dwarf Planets

Ka'iu Kimura (Imiloa Astronomy  Center of Hawaii)
Institute Director
101 Plenary Lecture: A Color Out of Space: ‘Oumuamua’s Brief and Mysterious Visit to the Solar System

** Yashashree Jadhav (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Graduate student
116.02: Monsters on the move: A search for supermassive black holes undergoing gravitational wave recoil

Know Your Power (Lauren Chambers, Nicole Cabrera Salazar, Lía Corrales, Dara Norman)
Special session

Posters

Qiana Hunt (University of Michigan)
Graduate Student
144.31: Find the Quenching Mechanism of a z ~ 0.7 Post-Starburst Galaxy

Erin Flowers (Princeton University)
Graduate Student
140.29: Getting to Know Your Star: A comparison of analytic techniques for deriving stellar parameters and abundances 

** Elizabeth Teng (Haverford College)
Undergraduate
153.12: Pipe it up: How NICER Data Filtration Methods Affect Time-of-Arrival Accuracy

** Osase Omoruyi (Yale University)
Undegraduate
154.03:  A WISE GLIMPSE of Star Formation in the Outer Milky Way 

Lauren Chambers (Space Telescope Science Institute)
Postbac Analyst
157.12: Preparing for JWST Commissioning Calibration and Science with the Multi-Instrument Ramp Generator (MIRaGe)

** David Zegeye (Haverford College | University of Minnesota)
undergraduate
151.02: Probing Additional Gravitational Lensing Effects of Supernova iPTF16geu

** Diego Garcia (Middlebury College)
Undergraduate
163.02: Determining the Evolutionary Status of HD 166191

** Marcell Howard (Case Western Reserve University)
Undergraduate
145.08: : Probing the Evolution of Galaxies by Stacking Stellar Mass

** Aylin Garcia Soto (MIT/Wesleyan University)
Postbac/Research Assistant
154.12: Different Observational Properties of the Leading and Trailing Edges of the KH 15D Circumbinary Ring

** Prasiddha Arunachalam (Rutgers University)
Graduate Student
150.12: A HST study of the proper motion of the forward shock of 0509-67.5: a supernova remnant in the LMC

Gaby Sanchez (UH Manoa)
Undergraduate
144.13: Testing a Dust-Immune Metallicity Diagnostic in Nearby Metal-Poor Dwarf Galaxies with Far-Infrared Spectroscopy

** Karen Perez  (Cornell University)
Undergraduate
149.11: A Method for Mitigating Jitter Noise in Pulsar Timing

** Sophia Singh (University of Southern California)
Graduate student
157.01: Thermal Blocking Filters for Infrared Applications

Nicole Arulanantham (University of Colorado Boulder)
Graduate Student
163.11: Tracing Inner Disk H2 and CO in Protoplanetary Systems with HST-COS 

Tuesday, January 8

Talks

Antonio J. Porras (Vanderbilt University)
Graduate student
230.05: Dissecting the Anatomy of Bulge and Disk Dominated Galaxies through DARK SAGE

** KeShawn Ivory (AAS Site Visit Oversight Committee + Rice University (alma mater)), Post-bacc
Nicole Cabrera Salazar (Movement Consulting)
Town Hall: Climate Site Visit Town Hall

J. Sebastian Pineda (CU Boulder)
Postdoc
204.03: FUMES: Simultaneous Optical and UV Spectroscopy of an M-dwarf Flare

Eileen Gonzales (CUNY Graduate Center | AMNH | Hunter College)
Graduate Student
218.07 (Beth Brown Talk): A Reanalysis of the Age of TRAPPIST-1

Gibor Basri (UC Berkeley)
Faculty (semi-retired)
219: Report of the 2018 AAS Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy Graduate Education

** Joey Rodriguez (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
Postdoc
218.01: A Compact Multi-Planet System With A Significantly Misaligned Ultra Short Period Planet

** John F. Wu (Rutgers University)
Graduate student
230.03: Gas and galaxy evolution in extreme z ~ 1 clusters and extreme z ~ 0.2 starbursts

Posters

** Ashley L. Walker  (Chicago State University | Johns Hopkins University)
Undergraduate
255.02: Infrared Transmission and Reflection of Titan Aerosol Analogues Under Vacuum

** Russell Van Linge (UC San Diego)
Undergraduate
259.3: Tuning Into Brown Dwarfs: Long-Term Radio Monitoring of Two Ultra-cool Low-Mass Binaries

Romy Rodriguez (The Ohio State University)
Graduate student
259.45: Finding Flares on M dwarfs with ASAS-SN

** Pa Chia Thao (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Post baccalaureate
247.23: The Young Exoplanet K2-25b: Flat Spectrum and High Eccentricity 

Eileen Gonzales (CUNY Graduate Center | AMNH | Hunter College)
Graduate Student
259.01: Is TRAPPIST-1 a Unique M-dwarf Host Star?

** Jennifer Strafford (The Ohio State University)
Undergraduate
258.14: The Age Evolution of Radio Morphology of Supernova Remnants

Yssavo Camacho-Neves (Rutgers University)
Graduate student
258.06: Spectral divergence of the Type Iax Supernova SN 2014dt 

** Junellie González Quiles (University of Maryland - College Park)
Undergraduate Student 
247.2: Prioritizing Exoplanet Targets for Atmospheric Study using NASA’s TESS Mission

Dhanesh (DK) Krishnarao (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Graduate Student
257.02: Online Astronomy Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 

** Leonardo Ruales  (Stony Brook University )
Undergraduate 
261.03: Quantifying the Lensing Power of Cosmic Telescopes

** Nicel Mohamed-Hinds (Stanford University)
Undergraduate 
261.12: Using Machine Learning to Predict the Masses of Galaxy Clusters
iPosters

Dhanesh (DK) Krishnarao (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Graduate Student
267.03: Ionized Gas Near Galactic Center: Physical Parameters and Mass Estimates

Wednesday, January 9

Talks

Laura Mayorga (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
Postdoc
326.06: Cassini Phase Curves of the Galilean Satellites and Implications for Direct-Imaging of Icy Exoplanets 

Ferah Munshi (University of Oklahoma )
Faculty 
351.21: Into darkness: what the MARVEL-ous Dwarf simulation can tell us about star formation

Erin Cox (Northwestern University )
Postdoc
320.07: Using ALMA to push the limits of mapping magnetic fields in protostars

Carlos Eduardo Munoz Romero (Grinnell College)
Undergraduate
301.05: Characterizing Exoplanets with SKYWALKER: An Open Source Multi-Model Spitzer Self-Calibration Pipeline

Malena Rice (Yale University)
Graduate student
302.02: An Occultation Network as a Detector of Distant Solar System Objects

Hwihyun Kim (Gemini Observatory)
Assistant Scientist
342.03: Selection and Identification of LEGUS cluster candidates 

Posters

Mia de los Reyes (Caltech)
Graduate student
366.03: Revisiting the Integrated Star Formation Law

** Danielle Rowland (Columbia University / STScI)
Undergraduate
351.01: Satellite Galaxy Characteristics in the SAGA Survey 

** Evan Haze Nunez (California State Polytechnic University - Pomona | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Undergraduate
364.16: Using Distant Galaxies to Constraing the Ionizing Photon Budget of Massive Stars

Rodolfo Montez Jr. (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
Scientist
364.13: XMM-Newton observations of the AGB star chi Cyg and post-AGB star U Mon

Sinclaire Manning (The University of Texas at Austin)
Graduate Student
368.08: Radio Morphologies of Dust Obscured Starbursts in the SuperCLASS Field 

Betsy Hernandez (Princeton University )
Post baccalaureate 
369.18:  Migration of Embedded Black Holes in Active Galactic Nucleus Disk Simulations

** Sierra Garza (California State Polytechnic University - Pomona)
Undergraduate
359.06: First Steps Investigating the Relationship between Solar Surface Magnetic Field and Coronal Soft X-Ray Spectra

Lina Florez (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Undergraduate
363.22: Characterizing OH Sky Spectra Using SDSS BOSS Data 

Tharindu Jayasinghe  (The Ohio State University )
Graduate Student
360.06: Constructing an all-sky catalog of bright variable stars with ASAS-SN

** Tenley Hutchinson-Smith (Spelman College)
Undergraduate
348.2: Variability of Hundreds of X-ray Binaries

** Oscar Cantua (The University of Texas at San Antonio)
Undergraduate student
368.07: The old the red and the dusty

Aleezah Ali  (University of Washington )
Undergraduate student
348.12: Optical and Infrared Observations of the T Tauri Binary KH 15D

** Bayu Wilson (University of Washington)
Undergraduate 
355.1: The Lyman-beta Power Spectrum from the XQ-100 Legacy Survey

** Marcus Dupont (Florida State University)
Undergraduate
359.04: Comparative Study of the Solar Wind: Modeling Charge State Distributions in the Heliosphere

Thursday, January 10

Talks

** Natalia Guerrero (MIT)
Research associate
423.03: TESS Objects of Interest Catalog for Sectors 1-4 of the TESS Mission
** Amber V. Britt (Fisk University)
Master’s Student
402.06: Coronagraph Simulations with LUVOIR and HabEx: A New Era of Exoplanet Characterization

Ray Sharma (Rutgers University)
Graduate
435.04: Hungry Heart: Black Holes in Simulated Dwarf Galaxies

Catherine Espaillat (Boston University)
Assistant professor
421 Plenary Lecture: From Disks to Planets: Observing Planet Formation in Disks Around Young Stars
Posters

Theron Carmichael (Harvard University)
Graduate student
465.01: Exploring the Brown Dwarf Desert: Short-period substellar companions from the Kepler and K2 missions

** Gabriel Casabona (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth)
Graduate student
456.07: Detonation Initiation in Type Ia Supernovae

Applications open for Advancing Theoretical Astrophysics Summer School

Advancing Theoretical Astrophysics Summer School

July 15-26, 2019 at University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Application due January 15, 2019
For more information, see https://collectiveastronomy.github.io/advancingtheoastro/

“Advancing Theoretical Astrophysics” is a two week long, international summer school intended to build and strengthen essential skills in physics and computation for a career in theoretical astrophysics. The summer school prioritizes a supportive, collaborative, and diverse learning environment.

The target groups for this school are graduate students pursuing a degree in astrophysics, with a BSc degree in physics or astrophysics (note that we will consider well-motivated exceptions on a case-by-case basis, such as early-stage postdocs wishing to change research area). One of our primary goals is to encourage young researchers who have an interest in pursuing theory, but have had only limited experience or access to resources, to make the leap. Attendees of the school will learn and employ a variety of computational methods, so a basic comfort level with linux and coding/scripting is expected.

The school will be a mix of short topical lectures and interactive problem solving, using methods that can be applied to a wide range of topics. Students will work collaboratively on several types of canonical problems (with guidance from teachers and more advanced students), gaining hands-on experience with cutting-edge techniques employed in modern theoretical astrophysics. Examples include setting up and solving non-linear differential equations, running numerical simulations of (magneto)hydrodynamic equations, and utilizing order-of-magnitude techniques to develop intuition for a physical problem. We will also provide training in essential complementary skills such as data visualisation, public speaking, proposal writing, and networking.

We welcome applications from everyone, but we especially encourage applicants from under-represented groups and countries with access to less resources for theoretical astrophysics. We hope to not only provide students with the tools to succeed in theoretical astrophysics, but to advance the science itself by opening the conversation to a diverse range of viewpoints, creating new pathways and approaches to solving the most difficult and interesting problems in the universe.

Confirmed Lecturers/Mentors/Facilitators: 
Camille Avestruz (University of Chicago/University of Michigan), Nicole Cabrera Salazar (Movement Consulting), Chiara Ceccobello (Chalmers University of Technology), Jane Dai (University of Hong Kong), Jason Dexter (CU Boulder), Sebastian Heinz (U Wisconsin, Madison),  Daniela Huppenkothen (University of Washington, Seattle), Andrew King (University of Leicester), Nicole Lloyd-Ronning (Los Alamos National Laboratory/University of New Mexico), Sera Markoff (University of Amsterdam), Gibwa Musoke (University of Amsterdam), Samaya Nissanke (University of Amsterdam), Smadar Naoz (University of California, Los Angeles), Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz (University of California, Santa Cruz/DARK Copenhagen), Irene Tamborra (Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen), Alexander Tchekhovskoy (Northwestern University)

TAURUS Scholar Spotlight: Analis Lawrence

The fifth TAURUS Scholar Spotlight of the summer focuses on Analis Lawrence, who recently graduated from Florida International University with a major in Physics and minors in Astronomy and Mathematics.  She will be attending the University of Florida as a graduate student in the Physics Department in the fall of 2018.  This summer Analis is working with Prof. Brendan Bowler on the Galactic kinematics of exoplanet host stars using Gaia, as part of the TAURUS research program at The University of Texas at Austin. He sat down with Analis recently for this interview.

BB: What inspired you to pursue a career in astronomy or science in general?  What draws you to science in the first place?

AL: A general passion for learning inspired me to pursue a career in astrophysics. But I have been most enchanted by reading and hearing about Albert Einstein’s work and his thought experiments on gravity, space, and time. I’ve been interested in science since a young age but not physics and astronomy until later in my academic career when I started going to schools that were STEM-focused.  Exposure to physics for me came once I took a high school physics course, and later in college, when I got involved with the astronomy club at the Florida International University.  I also became interested in astronomy through documentaries. 

BB: Please tell me more about yourself. What do you do for fun?

AL: For fun, I enjoy endurance running, playing and watching tennis, and painting when I have the time. My normal routine is a six-mile run in the mornings, which I do a few times each week.  I also enjoy spending time with my friends and my loved ones.

BB: In your opinion, what qualities makes astronomy so unique and compelling?

AL: What makes astrophysics so compelling to me is our insignificant size in the universe, yet how much space and time there is to explore.  It’s easy to forget until you look up. I like that astronomy ponders big questions that are truly amazing, from the origins of the universe to the nature of black holes to the question “Are we alone?”  What I find most appealing is space-time physics and cosmology from a theoretical perspective, which is the direction I aim to pursue in graduate school.  I’m looking forward to exploring the theoretical astrophysics groups at UF.

BB: Is there anything that you’re particularly proud of that you’d like to share— for example, something that’s happened along your academic or personal trajectory?

AL: I am most grateful for two REU’s at the University of Chicago. During the summer of 2016, I calibrated a photomultiplier tube for a liquid Xenon detector for their dark matter group with advisors Luca Grandi and Richard Saldanha. And the summer after, with Hsiao-Wen Chen, I carried out a statistical modeling study on highly ionized oxygen in star-forming galaxy halos. I then compared my model to observations of low-redshift galaxies from Hubble.

BB: What mentors, teachers, or role models have been the most inspiring to you in your life?

AL: All of my teachers, coaches, parents, and family have been inspiring in my life.   My most influential mentors have been in college, especially the particle physics and astrophysics professors at FIU.  My mentor at FIU was Dr. Boeglin who studies nuclear physics. And Dr. Webb’s astronomy lectures and star parties first got me interested in the field as early as freshman year.

Documentaries and books by theoretical physicist Brian Greene have been especially captivating, and I have loved listening to his World Science Festival discussions with scientists and philosophers.  I appreciate the way he’s able to simplify complex concepts for the public.  All of these helped inspire me to change my major. 

My high school physics teacher Mr. Smith also jumpstarted my interest in physics. He gave me an appreciation for critical thinking and brought much energy and enthusiasm to learning physics.


BB: What challenges and obstacles have you faced in your career? How have you overcome these challenges? 

AL: Attending schools in an underprivileged area has made me a hard worker and has taught me to try to think outside of the box, or to better realize that there is no box. Other schools tended to have more, enhanced resources for learning, and students there may have been introduced to physics earlier in their careers.  But I was fortunate to attend schools with great STEM programs and teachers who exposed me to new opportunities and an interdisciplinary education.  

BB: You’ll be heading to the University of Florida for graduate school next month— congratulations!  What are you most looking forward to at UF?

AL: I am mostly looking forward to meeting the faculty in the astrophysics theory group and the possibility to explore the different research opportunities, including LIGO.  I’m also looking forward to TA-ing and meeting my fellow grad students.

BB: What advice would you give to high school and undergraduate students of color interested in following your path?

AL: Keep your curiosity alive and be yourself.  Always work hard.

BB: What are your future and long-term career goals?

AL: I hope to become a professor. My interests are in space-time, black holes, and cosmology. Somewhere along the line, I want to help fix the minority and gender gap in physics education and careers.

Spotlight shared by Prof. Caitlin Casey, director of the TAURUS program.

TAURUS Scholar Spotlight: Gerlinder Difo Cheri

The fourth TAURUS scholar spotlight of the summer focuses on Gerlinder Difo Cheri, a rising senior at the University of the Virgin Islands. Gerlinder is working with Andrew Vanderburg this summer, searching for evidence of planetary destruction around the burned out remnants of stars like our Sun.

Gerlinder Difo Cheri joins us at the University of Texas at Austin from more than two thousand miles away in the US Virgin Islands. Coming to UT Austin poses both challenges and opportunities by virtue of the university’s sheer size: the number of students at UT Austin (about 51,000) is a bit more than half the total population of the US Virgin Islands (100,000). This summer, Gerlinder is making the most of the opportunities and resources in pursuit of his goals and ambitions.

Gerlinder grew up on a steady diet of science- and technology-related media. He recalls being inspired at an early age by scientists he saw on television, like Bill Nye the Science Guy, who “just went out and solved things.” Gerlinder’s interest in astronomy seemed natural to him. “How can you not be interested in astronomy?” he asks. These science and engineering role models drove him to enroll at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) and begin studying computer science.

Once he arrived, Gerlinder found the professors at UVI to be valuable role models as well. Before enrolling there, his role models were scientists and engineers (fictional or otherwise) he saw on television, ranging from Neil Degrasse Tyson to Tony Stark. But when he arrived at UVI, for the first time he met people who lived on his island and were pursuing his passion. Gerlinder found it indispensable to ask his professors about the challenges and struggles they faced.

Despite Gerlinder’s interest in astronomy, he was unable to dive in to the subject when he first enrolled at the UVI because the school did not offer any astronomy courses at that time. So when UVI offered their first astronomy class ever, Gerlinder immediately signed up. From there, Gerlinder took a leap and applied to be a TAURUS scholar at UT, which brought him here.

“The future of astronomy is beautiful and expansive,” Gerlinder says. He sees and values how astronomy can capture the public imagination, like how his imagination was captured as a child learning about science and technology from communicators on television. He recognizes, however, that initiative is required to overcome barriers. When asked what advice he might give to a younger student in a similar position to himself, Gerlinder says “You have to actively search for what you want to do, and don’t just wait for it to fall into your lap." If you take the first step, you might just find yourself studying the stars.

Spotlight shared by Prof. Caitlin Casey, director of the TAURUS program.

TAURUS Scholar Spotlight: Oscar Cantua

The third TAURUS Scholar Spotlight of the summer is about Oscar Cantua, who is a physics major at the University of Texas San Antonio, just 100 miles down the road from UT Austin.  Oscar is working with Dr. Jorge Zavala this summer on the characterization of some of the Universe's most luminous and dusty galaxies.

Oscar Cantua joins TAURUS from a familiar institution that is also a part of the UT System: the University of Texas at San Antonio. Despite being less than 100 miles from his hometown and in the same educational system, Oscar says that this summer's research experience represents a new world of opportunities to pursue his future career in astronomy.

Oscar’s interest in astronomy goes back to his childhood, when he first moved to the US from Mexico and used to read a lot of books to learn English. He realized that science books, and particularly astronomy-related storiesm were the most interesting to him. Some years later, astronomy went from being a hobby to a potential professional career after he spent a summer working at the NASA Johnson Space Center (yes, NASA!) as part of the Texas High School Aerospace Program. Now at UT San Antonio, Oscar is a physics major with a minor in astronomy. 

Oscar is part of the UT San Antonio's Top Scholar program, which combines a comprehensive four-year merit-based scholarship with personalized experiences in academics, leadership and community service. Thanks to this opportunity, he was able to get involved in scientific research early in his college career, analyzing data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the nature of binary systems in nearby galaxies, under the supervision of Prof. Eric Schlegel. This summer, Oscar is jumping wavelengths from the very short and energetic part of the spectrum to the longest-wavelength observations achieved with the most powerful radio telescopes in the world, in order to identify and study the most distant dusty star-forming galaxies in the Universe.

Looking back on the past, Oscar realized that it has not been easy to reach this point in his professional life.  He is a first-generation college student, living far away from his family, and having to work while studying. Now he is closer to his dream of going to graduate school, not only with passion and enthusiasm for astrophysics but also with abundant knowledge and experience. 

Oscar's advice to young people, particularly to those belonging to underrepresented groups like him, is simply "never stop chasing your dreams.”

Spotlight shared by Prof. Caitlin Casey, director of the TAURUS program.

LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program (DSFP)

Applications from URM students encouraged.

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We are pleased to announce that the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program is now accepting applications for new students at astrodatascience.org! 

The LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program (DSFP) is a supplement to graduate education in astronomy, intended to teach astronomy students essential skills for dealing with big data. You don't need to know anything about data science to apply, you just need to be excited to learn! 

The DSFP consists of three, one-week schools per year over a two year period. On top of teaching our students the skills they need for modern survey astronomy, we also aim to create a collaborative, supportive learning environment, and work to empower our students to teach the skills they learn to others. We strive to create an inclusive program, and particularly encourage applications from students from traditionally underrepresented groups in astronomy. 

Please visit astrodatascience.org to learn more!

Lucianne Walkowicz, Director

Adam Miller, Program Director