Undergraduate Research

Research is important at Wesleyan, and we have many opportunities for students to get involved with our active groups. Most astronomy majors spend some time observing with our 0.6 m telescope and CCD camera, which is used to study young star-forming regions and transiting exoplanets. Many get a chance to travel to observatories in Arizona or Hawaii. Others work on data obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). Data are reduced and analyzed on our extensive network of computer workstations available to majors. For the more theoretically inclined, we also make use of a supercomputing cluster operated jointly at Wesleyan by the Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics departments. One of the advantages of Wesleyan for undergraduates is that we have a master's degree program which gives our majors a chance to work with graduate students as well as faculty as part of an active research group.

The culmination of research at Wesleyan for most undergraduate majors is the senior thesis. Here are some examples of recent thesis titles, which provide a glimpse of the sort of research that students can get involved with in our department. Since our faculty has recently expanded, additional opportunities are now available.

Undergraduate Thesis Topics

Class	Student	Thesis Title
2023	Anna Fehr	Parametric Modeling of Debris Disk Density Structure for ARKS
2023	Seth Larner	Finding and Characterizing True Seyfert Two AGN in Archival Chandra and SDSS Data
2023	Eric Rumsfeld	Measuring Dynamical Masses of Gas-Bearing Debris Disk Host Stars
2023	Joshua Grajales	Dynamical Mass Measurements: Molecular Gas Emission in HD121617’s Debris Disk
2022	Cassidy Soloff	Unseen Worlds: A Search for Exoplanet Transits of Bright Early-Type Stars
2021	Benjamin Martinez	Black Hole Activity in the Local Universe
2021	Kimberly Paragas	The Atmospheric Escape of Close-In Gas Giant Exoplanets
2021	Mason Tea	Searching or Black Holes XRBs in the Local Universe
2021	David Vizgan	A Dual-Wavelength Study of the AU Mic Debris Disk
2021	Molly Watstein	A 'Nu' Approach to AGN Luminosity
2020	Gil Garcia	'Dramatic, Long-Term Variability in AGN'
2020	Hunter Vannier	Mapping The Local Interstellar Medium
2019	Robert Baldocchi	Bobby's Big Box of Galaxies
2019	Michael Henderson	Precision Photometry of Faint White Dwarf Stars from K2 Data
2018	Cail Daley	Vertical Structure & Dynamical Mass of AU Mic's Debris Disk
2018	Hannah Fritze	Hunting Intermediate Mass Black Holes in the Nearby Universe
2018	Aylin Garcia Soto	Dramatic X-ray and Optical Variability in AGNs
2017	Julian Dann	Our Stellar Neighborhood: ANalysis of the LISM Using Hubble
2017	Girish Duvvuri	Necroplanetology: Disrupted Material Transiting WD1145+017
2017	Simon Wright	Exploring the High Energy Sky
2017	Julia Zachary	Measuring the Local ISM with HST/STIS and Voyager
2016	Jesse Tarnas	Kepler Transit, Secondary Eclipse, and Phase Curve Analysis
2015	Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein	Characterizing the X-ray Source Population of M51
2015	Jesse Lieman-Sifry	The Mysterious Case of 49 Ceti's Gas-Rich Debris Disk
2015	Dilovan Serindag	Analyzing Kepler Exoplanets from their Optical Phase Curves
2012	Alexandra Truebenbach	The Central Stellar Structures of Active Galaxies
2011	Marshall Johnson	Exoplanetary Transit Timing Using the Perkin Telescope
2011	Adam Michael	Environments of Low-Luminosity Active Galaxies
2010	Emily Leiner	Analyzing the Light Curves of Transiting Extrasolar Planets
2010	Karlen Shahinyan	AGN on the Fringe
2009	Anna Williams	[OIII]-Detected ELGs at Intermediate Redshift
2009	Hanna Sugarman	Finding Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in the Local Universe
2008	Evan Tingle	Observations of the Solar Limb with TRACE and SUMER
2008	Arthur Sugden	The Star-Formation-Rate Density of the Local Universe
2008	Jessica Kellar	H-alpha Dots: The Nature of Isolated Emission-line Regions

Often, students will present the results of their research at meetings of the American Astronomical Society and/or in professional journals, such as The Astronomical Journal or The Astrophysical Journal. Here are a few examples of papers recently published by Wesleyan undergraduate student authors in collaboration with their research advisors. The student's name is in boldface.

Optical and Radio Observations of the T Tauri Binary KH 15D (V582 Mon): Stellar Properties, Disk Mass Limit, and Discovery of a CO Outflow, Aronow, R.A., Herbst., W., Hughes, A.M., Wilner, D.J., & Winn, J.N., 2018, Astronomical Journal, 155, 47

Radial Surface Density Profiles of as and Dust in the Debris Disk around 49 Ceti, Hughes, A.M., Lieman-Sifry, J., Flaherty, K.M., Daley, C.M., Roberge, A., Kospal, A., Moor, A., Kamp, I., Wilner, J., Andrews, S.M., Kastner, J.H., & Abraham, P., 2017, Astrophysical Journal, 839, 86

Debris Disks in the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association Resolved by ALMA, Lieman-Sifry, J., Hughes, A.M., Carpenter, J.M., Gorti, U., Hales, A., & Flaherty, K.M., 2016, Astrophysical Journal, 828, 26

Resolved CO Gas Interior to the Dust Rings of the HD 141569 Disk, Flaherty, K.M., Hughes, A.M., Andrews, S.M., Qi, C., Wilner, D.J., Boley, A.C., White, J.A., Harney, W., & Zachary, J., 2016, Astrophysical Journal, 818, 97

Spectroscopic Evolution of Disintegrating Planetesimals: Minutes to Months Variability in the Circumstellar Gas Associated with WD 1145+017, Redfield, S., Farihi, J., Cauley, P.W., Parsons, S.G., Gaensicke, B.T., & Duvvuri, G., 2017, Astrophysical Journal, 839, 42

The Interstellar Medium in the Kepler Search Volume, Johnson, M.C., Redfield, S., & Jensen, A.g., 2015 Astrophysical Journal, 807, 162

Black Holes at the Centers of Nearby Dwarf Galaxyes, Moran, E.C., Shahinyan, K., Sugarman, H.R., Velez, D.O., & Eracleous, M., 2014 Astronomical Journal, 148, 13

The Stellar Environments of Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Seyfert 2 Galaxies, Truebenbach, A., & Moran, E., Poster at the American Astronomical Society Meeting 220, 335.02

First Results from the Wesleyan Transiting Exoplanet Program, Johnson, M., Leiner, E., Redfield, S., Poster at the American Astronomical Society Meeting 217, 343.05

A Population of Metal-Poor Star-Forming Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts, Salzer, J.J.,Williams, A, Gronwall, C., Poster at the American Astronomical Society Meeting 212, 19.10

Research can also be done during the summer, as part of a job experience. There are many summer research jobs offered for undergraduates each year, and Wesleyan students have been quite successul at obtaining them. Wesleyan is part of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium, and this group has created many summer job opportunities over the years as well as sponsoring an annual student symposium and publication.

Where do our astronomy majors go when they graduate? Some choose to go on to graduate programs in Astronomy where they obtain a Ph.D. in preparation for a career in astronomy research and/or teaching. Here are some examples of recent students who have gone on to graduate school:

Wesleyan Class	Student	Graduate School	Subject
2023	Anna Fehr	Harvard	Astronomy
2023	Seth Larner	Washington U St. Louis	Astronomy
2023	Hannah Lewis	UNC	Quantitative Psychology
2023	Eric Rumsfeld	UC Irvine	Astronomy
2022	Cassidy Soloff	University of Arizona	Atmospheric Sciences
2022	Jack Root	UCLA	Astrophysics
2021	Kimberly Paragas	CalTech	Planetary Sciences
2021	David Vizgan	Fullbringht Scholar Cosmic Dawn Center/ U Illinois	Astrophysics
2021	Benjamin Martinez	Clemson	Atmospheric Science
2021	Terra Ganey	UCSC	Earth & Planetary Sciences
2020	Hunter Vannier	Perdue	Planetary Science
2020	Fallon Konow	Georgia State	Astronomy
2019	Michael Henderson	Clemson	Physics
2019	Robert Baldocchi	San Diego State	Astronomy
2019	Allison Quintana	Brown University	ScM Candidate in Biostatistics
2018	Anthony Santini	Wesleyan	Astronomy
2018	Hannah Fritze	University of Utah	Physics
2018	Cail Daley	U of Illinois	Astronomy
2018	Aylin Garcia Soto	Dartmouth	Astrophysics
2017	Girish Duvvuri	University of Colorado	Astrophysics
2016	Jesse Tarnas	Brown University	Planetary Science
2015	Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein	University of Washington	Astrophysics
2015	Dilovan Serindag	Leiden University	Astrophysics
2012	Alexandra Truebenbach	Colorado University	Astrophysics
2011	Marshall Johnson	University of Texas	Astrophysics
2010	Karlen Shahinyan	University of Minnesota	Astrophysics
2008	Arthur Sugden	Brown University	Microbiology
2008	Jessica Kellar	Dartmouth College	Astrophysics

Other Astronomy majors choose to use their education in other ways. Being an astronomy major at Wesleyan says to an employer that you are smart, hard working and well prepared in technical and communication skills. Our students are highly competitive for a wide variety of post-Wesleyan occupations. Below are recent examples of what you can do with a Wesleyan astronomy degree besides going to graduate school:

Wesleyan Class	Student	Occupation	Location
2021	Molly Watstein	LMT Community Support Scientist	UMass Amherst
2021	Mason Tea	I&T Systems Engineer working on JWS	Space Telescope Science Institute
2021	Dominik Sobieszek	Associate Software Engineer	Northrop Grumman
2021	Daniel Helfman	System Engineering Intern	Lockheed Martin
2020	Gilberto Garcia	Research Associate	Loyola University Chicago
2018	Ryan Adler-Levine	Software Engineer	Google
2017	Simon Wright	High school physics teacher	Washington, D.C.
2015	Jesse Lieman-Sifry	Medical Imaging	Arterys
2013	Mark Popinchalk	Outreach	American Museum of Natural History
2008/09 (B.A./M.A.)	Evan Tingle	Research	Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Chandra X-ray Center
2009	Hannah Sugarman	Research	University of Arizona
2009	Anna Williams	Research	Indiana University