| John Debes
(5th year) |
| email:
debes @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Aspects of formation, evolution, and detection of
planets around intermediate mass stars. |
Research Advisors |
Sigurdsson,
Ge |
| Other Interests: |
Reading, volleyball, soccer, jazz, anything involving a
beach or mountains |
| Favorite Color: |
silver |
| Alma Mater: |
Johns Hopkins University |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Even though I originally looked at Penn State to appease my
family (every member has gone to Penn State at one time or
another), I came here because of the amazing opportunities, the
great research, and the pleasant atmosphere. Also, there is
ice cream within 5 minutes walking distance of our
building |
| Karen Lewis
(5th year) |
| email:
lewis @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Accretion Disks in AGNs, Weak-line Radio Galaxies,
X-ray studies of Supernova Remnants |
| Research Advisor: |
Eracleous |
| Other Interests: |
Playing the piano, ballroom dancing (any kind), sailing
(in my former life as an undergrad), cooking, camping,
hiking, playing volleyball and soccer, Thursday night beer
at the 'Skellar playing cards, and reading Mystery
novels |
| Favorite Colors: |
Cerulean |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Wisconsin |
| Reasons for Coming: |
I came here because it's a great place to learn and grow as
an astronomer. The faculty are young, energetic and
interactive. There's enough available research projects to try
several things before settling down. I also really wanted to
dig into the new Chandra data. |
| Michele Stark
(5th year) |
| email:
stark @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Stars! Specifically, extreme horizontal branch
stars (EHB, also called Subdwarf B stars, sdB) in the galactic
field, and in particular those with unresolved FGK-type
companions |
| Research Advisor: |
Wade |
| Other Interests: |
Books, outreach, drawing/art, photography,
collecting and playing with toys (you should see my desk!),
playing cards (esp. Eucher) |
| Favorite Colors: |
blue, J-Ks |
| Alma Mater: |
Michigan State University |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Nice environment, really cool faculty, lots of research
opportunities, Grunch |
| Julian Van Eyken (4th year) |
| email:
vaneyken @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Extrasolar planets, instrumentation, GR (kind of
- as long is it's from a safe distance) |
| Research Advisor: |
Ge |
| Other Interests: |
Music composition, choral singing, karate, fencing,
sleeping, eating. Not necessarily in that order. |
| Favorite Color: |
Macaroni cheese crayon colour. And it's COLOUR. |
| Alma Mater: |
Cambridge University, England |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Friendly department, lots of research opportunities, broad
range of astronomy dealt with in department, young and rapidly
growing department. Opportunity to see a new country. Tired of
seeing nothing but rain and fog every freaking day. |
| Britton
Smith (3rd year) |
| email:
britton @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
early universe and structure formation, Perl,
prime numbers, general debasement |
| Research Advisor: |
Abel |
| Other Interests: |
alphabetizing, ping pong, prime95, ska, swearing, hacking
the mainframe, organizing, disorganizing, saying things, living
in the past, motionlessness |
| Favorite Color: |
blue, but I wear lots of red |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Wisconsin |
| Reasons for Coming: |
experience a town with leisure index of 3 (out of 100),
find out what "rock bottom" means |
| John Wise (3rd
year) |
| email:
jwise @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
High-z structure formation and the Dark Ages |
| Research Advisor: |
Abel |
| Other Interests: |
Loud Techno (preferrably trance) Music, Darts, Skiing, Car
Mechanics, Club and Formula One Racing, RX-7's, Bars, Dance
Clubs, Road Trips, and Gambling! |
| Favorite Color: |
Orange ($1000 chips) |
| Alma Mater: |
Georgia Tech |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Cool faculty, nice campus, college & party town, plenty of
hot women in PSU, research oppurtunities, get away from the
South, and they accepted me. |
| Avram (Avi) Mandell (3rd year)
|
| (currently taking a year off) |
| email:
mandell @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Specifically, my research interests center around
the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets.
I am currently investigating abundance anomalies in stars
with planets as possible evidence for formation. I'm also
working on dynamical studies of the formation of terrestrial
planets in systems with migrating giant planets.
On a grander scale, I'm interested in looking
at the connections between planet formation and the
possibility of life. In the future I hope to elucidate
the effect of planetary system properties on the ability
for a planet to host life. This is a key aspect of
astrobiology, the study of life in the universe. |
| Research Advisors: |
Ge and
Sigurdsson |
| Other Interests: |
I seem to get involved in everything, ranging from sports
(everything from soccer and tennis to skiing, snowboarding
and ju-jitsu) to photography and theater. I'm currently
trying to learn Spanish on the side, and I hope to get
into mountain biking soon. |
| Favorite Color: |
Dark blue |
| Alma Mater: |
Vassar College |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Penn State astonomy is majorly underrated. The professors
here are top quality, and there are so many interesting
research opportunities it's hard to choose what you want to
do. The extrasolar planet group is just ramping up, and
new connections are forming with the NASA Astrobiology
group in the Geoscience department. Overall, I was excited
to get involved with a young, energetic group of
researchers. |
| Hélène-Marie Flohic (2nd year) |
| email:
flohic @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
high energy astrophysics, binaries (especially
XRBs), accretion disks (around supermassive black holes,
binaries and/or young stars), star formation |
| Research Advisor: |
Eracleous |
| Other Interests: |
parties, scrabble, movies, pool, reading |
| Favorite Color: |
green |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Florida |
| Reasons for Coming: |
I wanted to be in a big university with a not so big
department with a lot of observing facilities. |
| Kim Herrmann (2nd year) |
| email:
herrmann @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Gravitational Lensing, Distance Scale, Planetary
Nebulae, Galaxies, and more ... |
| Research Advisor: |
Ciardullo |
| Other Interests: |
Outreach, Reading, Hiking, Singing, Playing the violin,
Writing Poetry (especially constellation riddles), Traveling,
Photography, Learning to play the piano, Watching movies
(especially Sci Fi), Acting |
| Favorite Color: |
??? (The whole rainbow?) |
| Alma Mater: |
Penn State University-Erie Campus, The Behrend College |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Alumni Recommendation, Exciting Research Opportunities,
Friendly People (Perhaps the last being the most
important!) |
| Bret Lehmer (2nd year) |
| email:
blehmer @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
astro 501, astro 502, phys 530, sealab 2021, music 311 |
| Research Advisor: |
Brandt |
| Other Interests: |
late-night mountain hikes, base jumping, musics, jogging,
biking, lifting, shaving, sleeping, kingdom (twilight cruiser),
nightlife |
| Favorite Color: |
pink |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Iowa |
| Reasons for Coming: |
the choice training facilities, gorgeous debutauntes,
tantalizing mountains, within driving distance of several
strong cities, aaaaand ...the only place to accept me :_( |
| Anand
Narayanan (2nd year) |
| email:
anand @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Currently my research is towards
understanding the structure and phases of galaxies by studying
chemical species at different ionization levels that generate
distinct intervening absorption features in quasar
spectrum. The work with QAL group that I did
the last couple of months has two phases: 1) identifying
absorption lines in selected STIS and FUSE archived quasar
spectra 2) Generate model spectrum to predict the nature and
derive helpful physical constraints regarding the
absorber.
My more specific interest, which is yet to
manifest in the form of research, is to learn about the
composition and dynamics of planetary atmospheres. Remote
sensing of planetary atmospheres and spotting spectral
fingerprints of biomarkers on Extrasolar Planets, is something
that I am planning to get involved in the coming years. |
| Research Advisor: |
Charlton |
| Other Interests: |
Rock..heavy rock - to be more specific the sedimentary &
igneous ones !! :) |
| Favorite Color: |
Red |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Kerala, India |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Diverse research with instrumentation development and
science. An avenue to get involved with astrobiology work
through PSARC (PennState
Astrobiology Research Center). |
| Jiajian Shen (2nd year) |
| email:
shjj @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Star and galaxy formation, interstellar medium, maybe others later |
| Research Advisor: |
Schneider (academic advisor) |
| Other Interests: |
fishing, swimming, soccer, basketball, cooking, dreaming |
| Favorite Color: |
white |
| Alma Mater: |
Beijing Normal University |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Our department is the fastest growing department in the
nation, as I want to be one of the fastest growing students
in astronomy, so I come here. |
| Manodeep Sinha (2nd year) |
| email:
msinha @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Theoretical stuff..as long as i dont have to go
on the roof of anything to observe something that is way too
distant.These days am working on Clusters - Beowulf
clusters. |
| Research Advisor: |
Laguna and Abel |
| Other Interests: |
Soccer, Tennis, Ping pong, Beer , Smoking(the right or the
wrong kind depending on when you were born), Cracking ,
Mersenne , Battleship ....phew. |
| Favorite Color: |
Blue |
| Alma Mater: |
I.I.T., Kharagpur |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Mistake..Big Mistake.Irregularites in the space-time
continuum coupled with Vogon poetry and the Improbability drive
made me land up here ;) |
| Emily Alicea-Muñoz (1st year) |
| email:
ealicea @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Gravitational stuff, black holes, neutron stars,
pulsars, early universe cosmology, old stars, high-energy
astrophysics... |
| Research Advisor: |
Laguna |
| Other Interests: |
Quantum gravity and string theory (yes, I am a
nerd)... Um... watching TV (Friends, The Simpsons, Futurama),
music, reading, going to the beach (to a real beach, in the
tropics, not in cold mid-latitudes) and other normal,
non-scientific stuff... |
| Favorite Color: |
Wine color (a dark purple-red, somewhere between burgundy
and crimson) |
| Alma Mater: |
University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez Campus |
| Reasons for Coming: |
A wide variety of research; very different weather from
what I'm used to; friendly atmosphere... |
| Pencheng Guo (1st year) |
| email:
pcguo @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
Instrumentation, astronomical data processing,
things about observaton. |
| Research Advisor: |
Feigelson |
| Other Interests: |
Bascketball,badminton,bicycle,billiards;animation,sports
game spectatoring,romance movie; Chinese
music(Zhen,flute),classical guitar;scientific fiction and
mythology;East Asian Culture;destroying and reparing
things;packing;planning,dreaming, recalling memory;travelling
and photographing;painting and computer
painting;cats,plants;spending time with my wife. |
| Favorite Color: |
all color presented by nature,and artificial colors
arranged in harmony(If artificial, pls add some gray therein,
or it will hurt my eyes). |
| Alma Mater: |
Peking University |
| Reasons for Coming: |
In my PS for several universities I stated my interet in
astronomical instrument and only PSU accept me.That obviously
showed PSU is the best place I can conduct my purposed
reserach. |
| Brendan Miller (1st year) |
| email:
bmiller @ astro.psu.edu |
| Research Interests: |
high-energy astrophysics, AGNs, quasar lines,
close binaries |
| Research Advisor: |
|
| Other Interests: |
teaching, cello, basketball, reading, bridge |
| Favorite Color: |
green |
| Alma Mater: |
M.I.T. |
| Reasons for Coming: |
Growing, energetic department; cutting edge instruments
(and the data they provide) like Chandra and Swift; friendly
and fun people; next year the football team is gonna be
awesome. |