CIERA REU Students Present at 235th Meeting of the AAS

Students from CIERA’s summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and the LSSTC Enabling Science program presented their research projects at the 235th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting. The conference was jointly held January 4-8 with the AAS Historical Astronomy and High Energy Astrophysics Divisions in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Directed by assistant research professor Aaron Geller, the REU and LSSTC programs focus on connections between astrophysics and other disciplines within CIERA. Students learn computer programming, develop skills in science communication, take field trips, and benefit from career panels in addition to collaborating with faculty on research projects.

The winter meeting of the AAS is the largest gathering of American astronomers each year and includes many opportunities for networking. The students presented the following posters:

	Devin Becker Advisors: Mario Spera, Fred Rasio Project: The Lives of Stars In Globular Clusters: From Birth to Black Hole
	Andrew Bowen Advisor: Aaron Geller Project: Eclipsing Binaries in Star Clusters from LSST
	Melissa Cashion Advisor: Mario Spera, Fred Rasio Project: The History of Planetary Systems in Dense Star Clusters
	Mercedes Collins Advisor: Seth Jacobson Project: The YORP Effect Can Efficiently Destroy 10 km Planetesimals In The Edge Of The Solar System
	Emma Kaufman Advisor: Sasha Tchekhovskoy Project: Investigating Power Spectral Densities of Black Hole Properties
	Camille Liotin Advisor: Christopher Berry, Vicky Kalogera Project: Simulation Analysis of High-Mass X-Ray Binaries and their Evolution into Binary Black Hole Mergers
	Nikolaus (Nik) Prusinski Advisors: Nancy Aggarwal, Christopher Berry Project: Detecting Orphan Memory from Gravitational Waves
	Andrew Santos Advisor: André de Gouvêa Project: Exploring a New Model for Neutrino Propagation Using Current and Future Experiments
	Sophia Taylor Advisors: Luke Zoltan Kelley, Claude-André Faucher-Giguère Project: A Numerical Formula Built to Measure Dynamical Friction in Realistic Galactic Environment
	David Velasco Advisor: Eric Dahl Project: Characterization of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) for SBC Experiment