Madison Brady
I’m very proud of the work I’m currently doing with MAROON-X, an instrument that was designed and built by Jacob Bean’s group before I started attending UChicago. MAROON-X is an extremely stable and precise instrument that allows us to detect the gravitational pull of small rocky exoplanets on their host stars, allowing us to measure their masses very precisely. I have been involved with the project (alongside Andreas Seifahrt, David Kasper, and Rafael Luque) since I came here a few years ago. I have stayed up many nights to perform remote observations and spent many hours poring over the resulting data. The project has gotten me involved with other groups and it’s rewarding to help teams get the data they need to publish very exciting science.
Mandy Chen
Mandy Chen was born and raised in Guizhou Province, Southwest China. Before coming to the University of Chicago she was studying at the University of Hong Kong, where she got bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics and astronomy. This is her fifth year as a PhD student in astronomy and astrophysics. Her research focuses on observations of the diffuse circumgalactic medium—the outermost envelopes of galaxies. She says she “seeks to better understand the dynamical state of this diffuse gas, and its connection to the star-formation/supermassive blackhole activities of galaxies and the cosmic baryon cycle in general.”