News: Students

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scientists have identified an Earth-size world, called TOI 700 e, orbiting within the habitable zone of its star – the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planet’s surface. The world is 95% Earth’s size and likely rocky.

Joalda Morancy, who studied astronomy and astrophysics, takes readers on journey through solar system and beyond

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.”

Madison is currently studying exoplanets, which are planets that aren’t in our solar system. Most of her work is observational, using telescopes and data analysis.

New measurements paint detailed portrait of an exoplanet’s atmosphere.

Study by Jared Siegel, UChicago ’22, sets upper limits on the masses of 50 exoplanets.

Harper Learmonth has been selected as a 2022-2023 Quad Faculty Research Grant recipient to serve as an undergraduate research assistant with Professor Rogers.

For my research topic I was set on doing “survey science”—using observations from large telescopes gathered into surveys to study our Universe and the physics of the objects within it, like galaxies, clusters, cosmic filaments, and voids.

Congratulations to Taylor Hoyt for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Tip of the Red Giant Branch and its Application to Measurements of the Hubble Constant”.

Congratulations to Meng-Xiang Lin for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on “Seeking Solutions for the Hubble Tension”.

Congratulations to Dimitrios Tanoglidis for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on “Shedding light on the Low-Surface-Brightness Universe with Galaxy Surveys and Machine Learning”.

Adina’s dissertation is on a multi-wavelength investigation of young stellar and planetary systems, supervised by Jacob Bean.

Rebecca’s dissertation is on the acceleration and astrophysical impact of galactic cosmic rays, supervised by Damiano Caprioli.

Congratulations to Rostom Mbarek for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on “Particle Acceleration, Propagation, and Detection: A Journey from the Kinetic Structure of Plasma Physics to Particle Transport on Cosmic Scales”

Congratulations to Huanqing Chen for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation on “Probing Cosmic Reionization with Quasar Proximity Zones” (PhD Advisor: Nick Gnedin)