2024 News

(August 15, 2024)

Sabrina Appel, who was an Astronomy Ph.D. student with Prof. Blakesley Burkhart, received a 3-year, $330,000 National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Sabrina, who is graduating with an October 2024 Ph.D., is moving to the American Museum of Natural History. Sabrina will build upon her Ph.D. research to study star formation, in particular the impact of jets, streams of high velocity gas produced in star formation, on the gas clouds and star clusters in which stars form. Sabrina will also be working on curriculum development for high school astrophysics.

(May 31, 2024)

Liam McDermott, who was a Ph.D. student with Prof. Geraldine Cochran in the area of Physics Education Research, received a 2-year, $340,000 National Science Foundation STEM Education Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, one of about two dozen awarded this year. Liam, who graduated with a May 2024 Ph.D., is now at University of Connecticut. This fellowship will allow McDermott to continue the research conducted during his dissertation investigating the experiences of neurodivergent physicists.

(Apr 19, 2024)

Congratulations to the following recipients of the undergraduate scholarships and awards that were announced at the April 17, 2024 Department Banquet:

Richard J. Plano 2024 Summer Research Internship: Wai Chen, Sidharth Raj, Zhongming Sun

Mary Wheeler Wigner Memorial Scholarship: Jeremiah Hou, Colin Macrie

Herman Y. Carr Scholarship: Darshan Lakshminarayanan, Aniruddha Madhava, Raymond Niu

Noémie B. Koller Scholarship: Raye Kessler, Emily Pham, Srushti Selot

Robert L. Sells Scholarship: Ethan Kasaba, Hari Rajesh, Anish Suresh

Paul L. Leath Award for outstanding senior thesis: Suchindram Dasgupta, Udbhav Kaushik, Anish Suresh

Aryabhata Endowed Award in Astronomy: Zoe Rosenberg, Michaela Schwab

Mohan S. Kalelkar Award: Amy Flather, Manisha Parthasarathy

Richard T. Weidner Physics Prize: Cormac Grindall

(Apr 19, 2024)

We are very pleased to report that at their meeting today, the Rutgers Board of Governors approved Blakesley Burkhart, Andy Mastbaum, and Kristy McQuinn for promotion to Associate Professor with tenure.

Congratulations to Blakesley, Andy, and Kristy on their well-deserved promotions!

• Profile(s): Burkhart, Blakesley, Mastbaum, Andrew, McQuinn, Kristen B W

(Apr 12, 2024)

Blakesley Burkhart is being recognized with the 2023-2024 Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence.  

 The award recognizes the exceptional research accomplishments of newly-promoted and tenured faculty members.

Congratulations to Blakesley for this well-earned recognition of her excellence in teaching/mentoring, scholarship, and service.

• Profile(s): Burkhart, Blakesley

(Apr 12, 2024)

We've just produced a new promo video.

Please take a look.

(March 5, 2024)

In the category of "when it rains, it pours". Kristy is in the news again today!

An interview with the AAS Journal Author Series on her recent JWST paper on the star formation history of a nearby dwarf went live on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/IJTl2YYAGLs

The goal of the AAS Journal Author Series is to connect authors with their article, their human story, and the larger astronomy community.  

Congratulations again Kristy!

• Profile(s): McQuinn, Kristen B W

March 4, 2024

Kristy McQuinn, Assistant Professor in the astronomy group, has been in the news lately for her appointment as the new Mission Head for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.  This is NASA's next great space telescope after the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope.  Kristy remains a professor at Rutgers (currently taking a leave of absence for the year) and will be at Rutgers through the spring semester.  

Today she was interviewed on "Good Day Philadelphia" https://www.fox29.com/video/1420461

and there's a Rutgers Today story too:https://www.rutgers.edu/news/rutgers-astronomer-named-mission-head-science-operations-center-nasas-next-space-telescope?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rutgerstoday&utm_content=Achievements

Congratulations, Kristy!

The new telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018), who was a prominent 20^th century astronomer. She obtained her astronomy PhD in 1949 from the University of Chicago.  She did highly recognized work on stellar spectroscopy at Yerkes Observatory and radio astronomy while at the Naval Research Lab.  In 1959 she moved to NASA as the head of observational astronomy, where she essentially built support for NASA's space program among the astronomy community.  One of her major legacies is the Hubble Space Telescope, the last NASA project she was closely involved in.  It is a fitting tribute that NASA in 2020 decided to name the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope after Nancy Grace Roman.

• Profile(s): McQuinn, Kristen B W

(Feb 1, 2024)

Professor Andrew Baker has been selected as a 2024 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.  This honor is bestowed on less than 0.5% of AAS’s membership each year and this is only the 5^th class of AAS Fellows.  Andrew joins Rachel Somerville (2020), Jerry Sellwood (2020), and Jack Hughes (2021) as AAS Fellows!

Andrew's citation reads:

"For essential work in fundamental radio and submillimeter studies of dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift, leadership of international collaborations, an exemplary record of service to the field, and inspirational mentorship to the next generation of astrophysicists."

Follow the link to the press release at the AAS:

https://aas.org/press/aas-names-21-new-fellows-2024

Congratulations to Andrew on this honor!

• Profile(s): Baker, Andrew J.

 Jan 6, 2024

The front page of today's NY Times features an article (under the fold) on work led by former Rutgers undergraduate (BS 2013), Viraj Pandya.

The study, based on observations taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, shows that galaxies in the early universe do not have the shape expected based on currently favored theories of galaxy formation under the standard cosmological model. This work has potential implications for the nature of dark matter and modifications to early universe cosmology. Before jumping to such exotic ideas, though, astronomers need to be much more confident about the behavior of gas, turbulence, heating and cooling, and other elements of the "gastrophysics" of matter in the early universe that influence star and galaxy formation.

Read more …

• Profile(s): Jha, Saurabh W.