Wesleyan Students Attend Astronomy Conference at Vassar College

Attendees at the 24th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium held at Vassar College on Oct. 26, 2013
Attendees at the 24th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium.

Wesleyan astronomy students and faculty traveled to Vassar College for the 24th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium (KNAC), held on October 25 and 26, 2013. About 85 astronomy faculty and students attended the one-day symposium, listening to talks by students at our institutions who did summer research projects in astronomy. KNAC is currently supported by an NSF grant to Wesleyan University. Member colleges are: Colgate, Haverford, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan and Williams.

In addition to the talks, we enjoyed a dinner and evening star party hosted at the Vassar College Observatory. Student speakers from Wesleyan were Junior Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein and Sophomore Jesse Tarnas. Also attending from Wesleyan were: Suwun Suwunnarat, Avram Stein, Girish Duvvurl, Maia Neiles-Sager, Julian Dann and Simon Wright, as well as Professors William Herbst, Meredith Hughes, Roy Kilgard and Seth Redfield.

The student speakers at the KNAC conference at Vassar.

The student speakers at the KNAC conference at Vassar.
Jesse Tarnas presents his research done under the direction of Professor Seth Redfield. He is searching for planets orbiting white dwarf stars.
Jesse Tarnas presents his research done under the direction of Professor Seth Redfield. He is searching for planets orbiting white dwarf stars.
Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein presents the results of his research with Professors Ed Moran and Roy Kilgard. The title of his presentation was:  "X-ray Fibrillation in the Heart of NGC 4395".
Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein presents the results of his research with Professors Ed Moran and Roy Kilgard. The title of his presentation was: “X-ray Fibrillation in the Heart of NGC 4395”.
Some of the Wesleyan students attending the conference at Vassar.
Some of the Wesleyan students attending the conference at Vassar.

Also presenting at the conference were KNAC students who worked at Wesleyan last summer, doing research under the direction of Wesleyan faculty. Four students from last summer gave talks. They were: Frankie Encalada from Broward College, who worked with Professor Meredith Hughes, Rachel Pedersen from Bates College who worked with Professor Bill Herbst, Alyssa Sokol from Colgate University who worked with Post-doc Adam Jensen and Estella de Souza from Bryn Mawr College who worked with Professor Seth Redfield. Will Harney of Union College presented a poster paper based on his summer research with Professor Meredith Hughes.

Estella de Souza of Bryn Mawr College presents her research "Using Kepler Data to Identify Possible Atmospheric Features in Exoplanets" done at Wesleyan under the direction of Seth Redfield.
Estella de Souza of Bryn Mawr College presents her research “Using Kepler Data to Identify Possible Atmospheric Features in Exoplanets” done at Wesleyan under the direction of Seth Redfield.
Frankie Encalada of Broward College presents his research entitled "An Investigation of the Circumstellar Disk around TYC-4496-780-1" done under the direction of Meredith Hughes.
Frankie Encalada of Broward College presents his research entitled “An Investigation of the Circumstellar Disk around TYC-4496-780-1” done under the direction of Meredith Hughes.
Alyssa Sokol of Colgate presents her research entitled "Gas Phase Silicon in the Interstellar Medium" done under the direction of Adam Jensen.
Alyssa Sokol of Colgate presents her research entitled “Gas Phase Silicon in the Interstellar Medium” done under the direction of Adam Jensen.

 

Rachel Pedersen of Bates College reports on her research concerning the Herbig Ae/Be Star T Ori. Her advisor was Bill Herbst.
Rachel Pedersen of Bates College reports on her research concerning the Herbig Ae/Be Star T Ori. Her advisor was Bill Herbst.
Summer 2013 at the Observatory.
Summer 2013 at the Observatory.