Students and Postdocs of Color presenting at AAS

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of students/postdocs of color (URM) who will be presenting at the AAS meeting. Many of the undergrads were students in the Harvard Banneker Institute, NAC and various bridge programs. 

Rising seniors who are applying to grad school 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!

---Tuesday---

105.02. A Light Curve probe of Stellar Surface Convection and Measure of Stellar Surface Gravity
Fabienne A. Bastien (Hubble Fellow)

110.04. On the Discovery of Massive ZZ Ceti Variables and the Peculiar Light Curve of SDSS J1529 
Brandon Curd *

125.01. The Effects of Magnetic Field Morphology on the Determination of Oxygen and Iron Abundances in the Solar Photosphere. 
Christopher S. Moore (grad student)

121.01. Measuring the Ultraviolet Variability of M Dwarfs with GALEX 
Brittany Miles​ *

135.14 Star formation rates of spiral galaxies in the Cosmic Web, Tuesday posters 
Mehmet Alpaslan (NASA Postdoc)

137.10. A CubeSat to Search for Transiting Planets Around the Young Star Beta Pictoris
Ameer Blake

137.15. Calibrating Images from the MINERVA Cameras 
Ana M. Colón

137.16. High Precision Photometry of Bright Transiting Exoplanet Hosts 
Maurice Wilson​ *

125.06. Resolving Volcanism on Io with Aperture Mask Interferometry 
Chima McGruder

138.08. Lithium Abundance in Planet Search Stars 
Justin Myles​

138.17. A Habitability Test of the Exoplanetary System K2-3 
Ryan Diaz-Perez *

138.18. Home Sweet Home?: Determining Habitability From the Eccentricities of Kepler-186 
Moiya McTier​ *

138.19. Investigating the Orbital Period Valley of Giant Planets in Kepler Data 
Brianna P. Thomas

138.20. Are there exoplanets near their Roche limits? 
Timothy Sanders *

138.21. Introducing an unknown companion in the Kepler-56 system 
Oderah "Justin" Otor *

142.09. Stellar & Planetary Parameters for K2's M dwarf Systems 
Arturo O. Martinez *

142.19. TRENDS: Compendium of Benchmark Objects 
Erica J. Eileen Gonzales (grad)

143.04. Discovering Massive Runaway Stars with Infrared Bow Shock Nebulae: First Results
Julian E. Andrews *

144.01. On The Origin of The Elements: The Spectacular Role of White Dwarfs 
Carl Fields *

145.15. Magnetic Activity of Ultracool Dwarfs 
Myles McKay *

--- Wednesday ---

219.03. Three LINERs Under the Hubble Spectral Microscope 
Mallory Molina

234.03. The Conditions Underpinning Extreme Star Formation in ULIRGs and LIRGs as Revealed by Herschel Far-Infrared Spectroscopy. 
Gabriel Vasquez

236.03 Component Properties of T Tauri Star Binaries (Wednesday)
Ryan Muzzio 

236.05 The DF Tau T Tauri Binary 
Nuria M. Wright-Garba *

236.13. Probabilistic HR Diagrams: A New Infrared and X-ray Chronometer for Very Young, Massive Stellar Clusters and Associations
Jessica Maldonado *

238.09. The Dual Associations of Fermi Source 3FGL J2015.6+3709
Qiana Hunt *

241.08. High-Cadence Timing Observations of an Exoplanet-Pulsar System, PSR B1257+12 - 
Rudy Rivera

241.18. A Particular Appetie: Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations of Preferential Accretion in the Supermassive Black Holes of Milky Way Size Galaxies
Natalie Sanchez

249.07. Applying the Principles of Systems Engineering and Project Management to Optimize Scientific Research 
Adria J. Peterkin

318.06D: Using diffusion k-means for simple stellar population modeling of low S/N quasar host galaxy spectra 
Gregory Mosby (applying for postdocs)

--- Thursday ---

318.02. A Continuum Framework of the Long-Term Optical/Near-Infrared Color Variability of Blazars 
Jedidah Isler (NSF Postdoctoral Fellow)

323.04. Highest redshift neutral hydrogen image in emission: A CHILES detection of a star bursting spiral
Ximena Fernández

334.03. Identifying Extraplanar Diffuse Ionized Gas in a Sample of MaNGA Galaxies
Ryan J. Hubbard

339.03. Time-Resolved Spectral Analysis of Blazar 0716+714
Rosamaria Diaz

340.04. Radio and X-ray observations of the Ultra-long GRB 150518A 
Louis Johnson *

342.06. Constraining the Satellite Quenching Timescale at z < 1.5
M. Katy Rodriguez Wimberly *

341.06. Widespread Hot Ammonia in the Central Kiloparsec of the Milky Way 
Tierra Candelaria

341.11. The Milky Way, The Galactic Center Poster Session 
Junellie Gonzalez Quiles

341.14. Probing Metallicity across the Milky Way Disk with the VLA 
Jonathan Barnes

342.11. Interaction Induced Size Evolution in Galaxies
Francisco Javier Mercado 

342.19 H-alpha observations of MKW 10
Harold Johnson

342.26. CSS Object Found in Galaxy Merger 1015+364 at 2.3 and 8.5 Hz 
Antonio J. Porras *

343.11 Millimeter Resolved Observations of the HD 181327 Debris Disk (Thursday)
Amy Steele (Graduate Student,UMD)

343.12. Analyzing the Distribution and Chemical Evolution of Major Nitrogen Carriers within Protoplanetary Disks 
Jamila Pegues *

345.04. WTF- and A- Stars: Spectroscopic Analysis of Kepler Light Curves
Miona G. Short

346.09. Star Formation Rate in The Solar Neighborhood and Beyond 
Bridget Kayitesi

346.15. The Spatial Distribution of Large and Small Dust Grains in Transitional Disks
Elizabeth Gutierrez

347.20. Discovery and Characterization of Large-Angular Size Ionized Nebulae with WHAM
Peter Doze *

348.20. Supernova Photometric Lightcurve Classification
Tayeb Zaidi

349.19. The Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey: Observations towards the NGC 7817/7798 Galaxy Pair 
Amanda Harrison

--- Friday ---

406.04. The Effect of Orbital Configuration on the Possible Climates and Habitability of Kepler-62f
Aomawa Shields (NSF Postdoc)

424.01. The Dense Gas Fraction in Molecular Clouds 
Nia Imara (Harvard FFL Postdoctoral Fellow)

425.02D. At the interface of the disk and halo: A lesson from APOGEE and other large spectroscopic surveys 
Keith Hawkins (applying for postdocs)

430.05. Kepler AutoRegressive Planet Search 
Gabriel A. Caceres

446.04. AstroPAL: A Mentoring Program for Grad Students
Nicole Estefania Cabrera Salazar (finishing PhD)

AAS Beth Brown Award winner presentations and CSMA Meet and Greet

Several current and former Beth Brown Memorial Award winners will be presenting their research at the AAS in Kissimmee, FL in Jan.  The Beth Brown Memorial Award is sponsored by the AAS and presented by the ASTRO committee of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) to two student posters and one student speaker at the NSBP meeting. The prize is named for Dr. Beth Brown an astronomer and active member of both societies, who died suddenly in 2008 at the age of 39.

2015 Oral presentation winner:

Christopher S. Moore (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder)

Abstract ID: 125.01

Title: The Effects of Magnetic Field Morphology on the Determination of Oxygen and Iron Abundances in the Solar Photosphere

Session Title: The Sun and Solar System

Session Date: January 5, 2016

2015 Undergrad poster winner:

Carl E. Fields, Jr. (Arizona State Univ.)

Poster Number: 144.01

Title: On The Origin of The Elements: The Spectacular Role of White Dwarfs

Session Title: Variable Stars & White Dwarfs Poster Session

Session Date: January 5, 2016

Former winners:

Keith Hawkins (Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge UK)

Abstract ID: 425.02D

Title: At the interface of the Galactic disk and halo: A lesson from APOGEE and other large spectroscopic surveys 

Session Title: The Milky Way, Stellar Populations

Session Date: January 8, 2016

  

Gregory Mosby (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

Abstract ID: 318.06D 

Title: Using diffusion k-means for simple stellar population modeling of low S/N quasar host galaxy spectra 

Session Title: AGN, QSO, Blazars: Physics and Models 

Session Date: January 7, 2016 

------

CSMA Meet and Greet Scheduled for 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM; St. George 104 (Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center)

Visualizing privilege

But also, there's this, based on this study. Here's the abstract:

Racial inequity continues to plague America, yet many Whites still doubt the existence of racial advantages, limiting progress and cooperation. What happens when people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists. Experiments 1a and 1b show that Whites exposed to evidence of racial privilege claim to have suffered more personal life hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege. Experiment 2 shows that self-affirmation reverses the effect of exposure to evidence of privilege on hardship claims, implicating the motivated nature of hardship claims. Further, affirmed participants acknowledge more personal privilege, which is associated with increased support for inequity-reducing policies.

What are Microaggressions?

Reposed with permission from the Women in Astronomy Blog

This past June I attended the Inclusive Astronomy conference in Nashville and there was an incredible talk by Kenjus Watson about microaggressions. This term gets brought up frequently in feminist and equity conversations, but a lot of people I've talked to don't really understand what it means, or how microaggressions manifest in everyday life. In fact, I was guilty of one of the microaggressions that Mr. Watson highlighted, when I recently asked a trans* woman what the trans* community thought about Caitlin Jenner's transition.

Some examples of #microaggressions via @kenjuswatson #IA2015 pic.twitter.com/6HUfveQJ9d

— Jessica Kirkpatrick (@berkeleyjess) June 17, 2015

We Stand With Ahmed

We strongly condemn the racist actions of MacArthur High School and the Irving, Texas Police Department on Monday September 14, in arresting Ahmed Mohamed for suspicion of making a “hoax bomb”.  Rather than being praised for his initiative, inventiveness, and technical skill in making an electronic clock from scratch, Ahmed was subject to unsubstantiated suspicion, overt racism, and the indignity of public arrest. Such actions serve to perpetuate and enforce the barriers faced by students of color who yearn to be scientists and engineers, and stands in opposition to our nation’s principles of equity and innovation. We are honored to support Ahmed and his fellow future scientists of color, and encourage our community to demand MacArthur High School administrators and Irving officials make a commitment to rooting out the systemic racism and discrimination in their organizations.

#IstandwithAhmed

As per AAS policy, this is not a CSWA committee-endorsed statement and does not necessarily reflect the views of the AAS, its Council or its officers. 

Social Justice Vocabulary Words

The purpose of this blog is to educate the scientific community about race, racism and the issues faced by people of color in STEM generally, and astronomy more specifically. We recognize that our culture and society do not equip people with the vocabulary and historical knowledge to engage in conversations about race and racism in a cogent or constructive manner (e.g. Bonilla-Silva 2010). Because of this it is important to lay out some commonly-used vocabulary words that will appear in future posts. Because we subscribe to an intersectional approach to our antiracism work, we provide vocabulary pertaining to social justice issues beyond race. 

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather a springboard for future discussions and posts. If you encounter words and terms that are unfamiliar, we encourage you to do a quick Google search.