“After all, we are all made of star dust, and so I hope that we can work to understand the origin of life together. Fortunately, we have about 5 billion years until the Sun enters a red giant phase and consumes the Earth, returning us to star dust once more.”
Read More
It’s March Madness… Nebula March Madness! Which nebula do you think will triumph in this Twitter tournament? Follow along at #NebulaMM2019! In Round 4, the birds and the bugs go head to head with the Eagle Nebula versus the Butterfly Nebula!
Read More
It’s March Madness… Nebula March Madness! Which nebula do you think will triumph in this Twitter tournament? Follow along at #NebulaMM2019! The theme of Round 3 is “Discovery”
Read More
It’s March Madness… Nebula March Madness! Which nebula do you think will triumph in this Twitter tournament? Follow along at #NebulaMM2019! The theme of Round 2 is “What’s it made of?”
Read More
It’s March Madness… Nebula March Madness! Which nebula do you think will triumph in this Twitter tournament? Follow along at #NebulaMM2019!
Read More
Science art, travel, conferences, travel, moving, and travel. These are the highlights from my eighth and ninth terms of graduate school.
Read More
Astrochemistry is the joining of astronomy and chemistry, but what types of questions do astrochemists study, and why do they study these questions at all? Here, astrochemistry is defined as the study of molecules in space, and we take a look at where they are, how they got there, and what they are doing before considering some of the many ways in which chemistry can help us understand our wider universe.
Read More
Obtaining astronomical data with a telescope takes much longer than several hours actually using the instrument. Rather, the process takes months starting with a telescope proposal that provides both scientific justification for the project and technical justification for the instruments requested. Here’s a look into what this process looks like, from writing the proposal itself to the review process, using my recent Green Bank Telescope observations to provide some examples.
Read More
I recently went on a bit of a speaking tour about south-central PA. I gave six talks in two weeks while there. Here is how I arranged my tour!
Read More
Illustrated summaries from my weeks 6 through 13 of reading #365papers are all about different complex organic molecules in protostars and molecular clouds.
Read More
The application for the NSF GRFP includes a two-page research statement. In these two pages, you have to provide a brief plan of what research you plan to carry out in grad school, address your intellectual merits and broader impacts, and provide enough background information so that a scientist in the same discipline (but likely a completely different area of research) can easily understand the ideas you are trying to convey. How can you possibly fit all of that into two pages?
Read More
Proposal writing, teaching, and passing candidacy (!!!). These are the highlights from my seventh term of graduate school.
Read More
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and yet water ice has been found on its surface. How is this possible? Permanent shadows and organic chemistry.
Read More
Wisdom teeth, teaching, and SciComm. These are the highlights from my sixth term of graduate school.
Read More
Illustrated summaries from my fourth and fifth weeks of reading #365papers are all about different complex organic molecules in protostars and molecular clouds.
Read More
NSF Graduate Research Fellows submit an Annual Activity Report summarizing how the grantee progressed during the previous year as an NSF fellow. Because the NSF GRFP is federally-funded, I am making it public here to share how my graduate school experience has been impacted by the grant.
Read More
Teaching, a final course, and a holiday in Europe. These are the highlights from my fifth term in grad school.
Read More
Illustrated summaries from my third week of reading #365paper are all about the formation of complex organic molecules in young stellar objects.
Read More
Illustrated summaries from my second week of reading #365paper are all complex organic molecules in young stellar objects.
Read More
Illustrated summaries from my first week of reading #365paper are all about PAHs in the environment, especially around Southern California.
Read More