Current Undergraduates, Recent Graduates and their Research

Seniors 2024-2025

Tejahni Desire
Senior Thesis: Turbulence in the ISM
Advisor: Chang-Goo Kim 

Shannon Filer
Senior Thesis: 
Advisor: Jamie Rankin

Xander Jenkin
Senior Thesis: 
Advisor: Jenny Greene & Jiayi Sun

Sajia Shahrin Neha
Senior Thesis:  
Advisor:  

James Robinson
Senior Thesis: Cosmological Simulations
Advisor: Romain Teyssier 

Diego Solorio
Senior Thesis: Developing Astronomy Web Course
Advisor: Neta Bahcall  

Luke Stockless
Senior Thesis: 
Advisor: 

Hy Truong 
Senior Thesis:  
Advisor: Michael Strauss & Charlotte Ward

Vivek Vijayakumar 
Senior Thesis: Decomposition of Disk Galaxies for Estimation of ISM Pressure
Advisor: Eve Ostriker & Jiayi Sun

Belinda Wu
Senior Thesis: Neutrino Sky Simulations 
Advisor: Chris Tull (PHY)

Juniors 2024-2025

Sufia Birmingham
Fall JP: Changing State AGNs
Advisor: Charlotte Ward
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Jake Grodner
Fall JP: Relaxation of Collisionless Plasmas
Advisor: Uddipan Banik
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Teodor Grosu
Fall JP: 
Advisor: Jo Dunkley & Nick Kokron (IAS)
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Austin Guo
Fall JP: Exoplanets Atmospheres
Advisor: Akash Gupta
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Taeho Kim
Fall JP: 
Advisor: Jeremy Goodman
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Veena Krishnaraj
Fall JP: 
Advisor: Jenny Greene
Spring JP: 
Advisor:  

Mariana Ordonez
Fall JP: 
Advisor:  
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Jahnavi Murthy Padukone
Fall JP: 
Advisor: Shirley Ho
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Amrita Sahu
Fall JP: Dark Matter Halo Concentration with Mini-Ramses Simulations
Advisor: Romain Teyssier
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Lillie Szemraj
Fall JP: Disentangling Spinning and Non-spinning Black-Hole Systems 
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall & Sylvia Biscoveanu (PHY)
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Sophia Varughese
Fall JP: Quasars
Advisor: Michael Strauss
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Liam Wang
Fall JP: Formation of Structures in the Galaxy M95
Advisor: Jiayi Sun
Spring JP: 
Advisor: 

Seniors 2023-2024

Katherine Accetta
Senior Thesis: Modeling the Plasma Environment of Io
Advisor:  Jamey Szalay

Jian Arnold
Senior Thesis: Developing A High Resolution Electrostatic Analyzer to Measure Thermal Width of A Laboratory Ion Beam
Advisor:  Dave McComas, Jamie Rankin

Paige Cromley
Senior Thesis: Beyond Starlight: A Journalistic Exploration of Multi-Messenger Astronomy
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall, Mike Lemonick

Wolf Cukier
Senior Thesis:  A Generalized Scattering Model for Semi-Infinite Atmospheres
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Jupiter Ding
Senior Thesis:  Plasma Echo Analogues in Galactic Disk Dynamics
Advisor:  Scott Tremaine, Matt Kunz, Chris Hamilton

Ryan LoRusso
Senior Thesis: Evolution of Closely Orbiting Exoplanets about Helium Burning Stars
Advisor:  Joshua Winn

Cole Meyer
Senior Thesis:  Thermal Imagery of Callisto from ALMA Calibrator Data
Advisor:  Chris Chyba, Katherine de Kleer

Reese Owen
Senior Thesis: Using Graph Neural Networks to Mimic the Effects of Galaxy Blending in Large-scale Cosmological Simulations
Advisor:  Peter Melchior

Helen Shao
Senior Thesis: Beyond ΛCDM: Constraining Neutrino Mass Sum in Non-Standard Cosmologies
Advisor:  Jo Dunkley, Jahmour Givans

Diego Solorio
on leave

Josiah Taylor
Senior Thesis: A Reduced Chi Squared Analysis of Pickup Ions in the Plasma Field about Europa
Advisor:  James Szalay

Joshua Zou
Senior Thesis: Tidally Locked Exoplanets: Fact and Fiction
Advisor: Joshua Winn

Juniors 2023-2024

Tejahni Desire
Fall JP: Black Hole Photon Rings with Realistic Plasma Models
Advisor:  Alejandro Cardenas-Avendano, Andrew Chael
Spring JP: 
Advisor: Alejandro Cardenas-Avendano, Andrew Chael

Shannon Filer
Fall JP: Alfvenic Reconnecting Plasmoid Thruster Simulation Analysis
Advisor:  Fatima Ebrahimi
Spring JP:
Advisor: Jamie Rankin

Xander Jenkin
Fall JP:  Searching Local Universe Fast Radio Bursts
Advisor:  Dongzi Li
Spring JP:  
Advisor:  Dongzi Li

Sajia Shahrin Neha
Fall JP: X-ray Emissions in Supernova Remnants
Advisor:  Chang-Goo Kim
Spring JP:  
Advisor: Michael Strauss

James Robinson
Fall JP: Galaxy Clustering and Dark Matter Halo Properties for Emission Line Galaxies in LAGER
Advisor:  Lucia Perez
Spring JP: An All-Sky Method for Creating Mock Kinetic SZ Data from Cosmic Simulations of Dark Matter
Advisor: Adrian Bayer 

Luke Stockless
Fall JP:  Searching for Tidal Orbital Decay in WASP-039b
Advisor: Josh Winn
Spring JP:  
Advisor: Chris Chyba 

Hy Truong 
Fall JP: Modeling Disk Emission in Broadline Quasars from SDSS
Advisor:  Michael Strauss, Charlotte Ward
Spring JP: 
Advisor: Jenny Greene 

Vivek Vijayakumar 
Fall JP:  RVPIPE: a line-by-line radial velocity pipeline to quickly process large spectroscopic datasets
Advisor: Ashley Chontos
Spring JP: 
Advisor: Jiayi Sun & Eve Ostriker

Belinda Wu
Fall JP: JWST UNCOVER: Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies
Advisor:  Jenny Greene and David Setton
Spring JP:  Modeling Star Formation Burst Cycles in Dwarf Galaxies 
Advisor: Jenny Greene and David Setton

Seniors 2022-2023

Daisy Bissonette
Senior Thesis: The Initial Mass Function in Massive Early-Type Galaxies
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Jiangying Gao
Senior Thesis: Form-Finding and Optimization of Tensegrity Structures for Space Applications: A Study on Load-Bearing Capability and Packaging Efficiency of Tensegrity Space Masts 
Advisor:  Glaucio Paulino (CEE) and Neta Bahcall

Siegfried Gawenda
Senior Thesis: A Preliminary Analysis of GDR3 Metallicities for Exoplanet Hosts
Advisor:  Daylan Tansu and Josh Winn

Nicole Gountanis
Senior Thesis: Using JSWT to Investigate the Crab Nebula's Synchrotron Emission 
Advisor:  Tea Temim and Anatoly Spitkovsky

Juan Hermo
Senior Thesis: The Stars are Shaking, Your Honor: Overview of Asteroseismology and A Benchmark Case for Bright Sun-like Stars with TESS
Advisor:  Ashley Chontos and Michael Strauss

Satuye Lacayo
Senior Thesis: Galactic Evolution at High Redshifts: Simulations and Comparisons with Observations and Theoretical Models
Advisor:  Romain Teyssier

Kate Macakanja
Senior Thesis:  The Color of Stars: Uses of Stellar Color in the Long 19th Century
Advisor: Mike Gordin and Neta Bahcall

Trys McCann
Senior Thesis: Developing Techniques for High Redshift Quasar Selection in HSC Wide Field Data 
AdvisorSophie Reid and Michael Strauss

Emily Murray
Senior Thesis: Evaluating Clustering Algorithms as Applied to Exoplanet Populations 
Advisor:  Daylan Tansu and Josh Winn

Savannah Pobre
Senior Thesis: Space Invaders for a New Space Age: Using ODE's to Model the Trajectory of Low Earth Orbit with an Increasing Debris Field 
Advisor:  Alex Glazer and Adam Burrows

Camille Reeves
Senior Thesis: From Wall-E to Walled In: an Exploration of the Accumulating Effects of Privatization on Space Debris in the Post-Soviet Era
Advisor:  Kelsey Hatzell (MAE) and Neta Bahcall

Christian Robles
Senior Thesis: Princeton All Sky Camera: Instrument, Observations, and Data Reduction
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos

Henry Yuan
Senior Thesis: Spin-Orbit Resonances of Triaxial Super-Earths
Advisor:  Yubo Su and Jeremy Goodman

Juniors 2022-2023

Katherine Accetta
Fall JP: Locating the Missing Baryons in Groups and Clusters
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Spring JP: Analysis of the Conjunction Time for the Exoplanet HD 209458 b
Advisor: Joshua Winn

Paige Cromley
Fall JP: A Look at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Upcoming Time-Lapse of the Universe
Advisor:  Mike Lemonick
Spring JP: Looking for Black Holes in Pandora's Cluster
Advisor: Jenny Greene

Wolf Cukier
Fall JP: Polarized Raytracing of Black Hole Magnetospheres
Advisor:  Benjamin Crinquand and Anatoly Spitkovsky
Spring JP (Early):  Natural Transport of Microbes from Early Venus to Archean Earth
Advisor:  Chris Chyba

Jupiter Ding
Fall JPMiscentering of Optical Galaxy Clusters Based on Sunyaev-Zeldovich Counterparts
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Inclination Dynamics of Tightly-Packed Exoplanetary Systems 
Advisor: Yubo Su and Jeremy Goodman

Ryan LoRusso
Fall JP: A Survey of the Turbulence Quantities in Jupiter’s Dawnside Magnetosheath
Advisor:  Riddhi Bandyopadhyay
Spring JP: Radiative Transfer in a Simulated Galaxy 
Advisor: Romain Teyssier 

Cole Meyer
Fall JP: Estimates of Ion and Electron Heating Rates Extended to the Near-Sun Environment
Advisor:  Riddhi Bandyopadhyay
Spring JP:  Determining the CMB Lensing Power Spectrum Using Statistical Estimators
Advisor: Lyman Page

Reese Owen
Fall JP: Modeling Stellar Convection Using Cylindrical and Spherical Numerical Simulations
Advisor:  Romain Teyssier
Spring JP: Confirming the Discovery of Hot Super Jupiter
Advisor: Ashley Chontos

Helen Shao
Fall JP: An universal equation to predict Ωm from halo and galaxy catalogues
Advisor:  Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro and Romain Teyssier
Spring JP: Does the Circumgalactic Medium Resolve the Missing Baryon Problem 
Advisor: Neta Bahcall

Diego Solorio
Fall JP:  An Examination of Virial’s Theorem within Binary Galaxy Cluster Systems
Advisor:  Romain Teyssier
Spring JP:  An Overview of the Scientific and Native Hawaiian Perspectives Regarding the Thirty-Meter Telescope
Advisor: Mike Lemonick

Josiah Taylor
Fall JP: Fitting Dark Matter Haloes from an N-Body Simulation
Advisor:  Romain Teyssier
Spring JP: Using Partial Variance of Increments to Analyze Two Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections in November 2020
Advisor: Riddhi Bandyopadhyay

Joshua Zou
Fall JP: (on leave)
Spring JP:
Advisor: Adam Burrows

Seniors 2021-2022

Zizi Coleman
Senior Thesis:  A Census of Extra-Solar Transit Hosts in the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) Survey
Advisor:  Rachael Beaton and Neta Bahcall
Postgraduate:  teaching fellowship

Mark Dodici
Senior Thesis:  Exploring Disk-Torquing as a Mechanism for Exciting Spin-Orbit Misalignments in Exoplanetary Systems
Advisor:  Chris Spalding and Jeremy Goodman
Postgraduate;   Graduate School, Astrophysics, University of Toronto

Sydney Evans
Senior Thesis:  Environmental Monitoring and Lab System Development and Diagnostics of the Princeton Space Physics Lab
Advisor:  Jamie Rankin and Dave McComas
Postgraduate:  Goldman Sachs

Sinclaire Jones
Senior Thesis:  A Warm Neptune Orbiting the Nearby Active mid M dwarf TOI-2-15 and Precision Spectral Parameters in the Near-Infrared with HFP-SpecMatch
Advisor:  Gummi Stefansson and Josh Winn
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Ohio State University

Gideon McFarland
Senior Thesis:  The Near Zone Sizes of High-Redshift Quasars as a Probe of the Epoch of Reionization 
Advisor:  Sophie Reed and Michael Strauss
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Northwestern University

Julianna Pulsinelli
Senior Thesis:  Detectability of Sol Systems with Kepler and TESS
Advisor:  Josh Winn
Postgraduate:  industry; data science

Juniors 2021-2022


Daisy Bissonette
Fall JP:  X-ray Variability of the Galactic Center Black Hole with NICER
Advisor:  Lena Murchikova and Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  Biosignatures in Exoplanet Atmospheres:  Signs of Life and How to Detect Them
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Wolf Cukier (early concentrator)
Spring JP:  Natural Transport of Microbes from Early Venus to Archaean Earth
Advisor:  Chris Chyba

Jiangying Gao
Fall JP:  The Merian Survey of Dwarf Galaxies
Advisor:  Jenny Greene
Spring JP:  Using Radio Detection to Improve the Selection of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Siegfried Gawenda
Fall JP:  Understanding the Evolution of Composite Supernova Remnants: An X-Ray Analysis of MSH 15–56
Advisor:  Tea Temim
Spring JP:  The Nature of Turbulence Spectra in Jupiter's Magnetosheath
Advisor:  Riddhi Bandyopadhyay and Dave McComas

Nicole Gountanis
Fall JP:  Potential Atmospheric Inflation of Circumbinary Exoplanets Driven by Eccentricity Tides
Advisor:  Sarah Millholland
Spring JP:  The Stellar Mass Fraction of Clusters of Galaxies
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Juan Hermo
Fall JP:  Detection of Jovian Irregular Satellites
Advisor:  Dan Tamayo
Spring JP:  Diversity and Equity Within Astrophysics and Physical Science Programs
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Satuye Lacayo
Fall JP:  Convolutional Neural Network Models and Their Advantages of CMB Lensing Cluster Mass Estimations
Advisor:  Ben Horowitz
Spring JP:  Analyzing Object Blending with Graph Neural Networks
Advisor:  Peter Melchior

Kate Macakanja
Fall JP:  A Measurement of the tSZ Signal in Cosmic Voids
Advisor:  Alice Pisani and Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  The Use of Quantitative Data in Diversity Efforts in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. 
Advisor:  Janet Vertesi and Neta Bahcall

Trystin McCann
Fall JP:  A Model for Studying MHD Plasma Turbulence in a Collisionless Environment Suitable for Application to the Expanding Solar Wind
Advisor:  Matt Kunz
Spring JP:  MHD Simulation of X-Ray Bursts on an Accreting Neutron Star
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky

Emily Murray
Fall JP:  Modeling Interaction of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with Supernova Ejecta: Infrared Emission in Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8
Advisor:  Tea Temim
Spring JP:  Revisiting Relations Among Exoplanet Characteristics:  Mass, Radius, Density, Insolation and  Stellar Age
Advisor:  Tansu Daylan

Myra Norton
Fall JP:  How Correlated is Dust Polarization between Far-Infrared and CMB Frequencies?
Advisor:  Brandon Hensley
Spring JP: (on leave)

Savannah Pobre
Fall JP:  Are brightest cluster galaxies special?
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Rules of the Road for Cislunar Space 
Advisor:  Chris Chyba

Camille Reeves
Fall JP:  Let's Talk Trash: An Analysis of Three Potential Legal Frameworks for the Mitigation and Prevention of Unnecessary Space Debris
Advisor:  Chris Chyba
Spring JP:  Out of Sight, Out of Mind:  An Analysis of the Hidden Costs of Humanity's Journey to Mars
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Christian Robles
Fall JP:  Princeton All Sky Camera (PASC)
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos
Spring JP:  Review of HV Insulator Breakdown and Design
Advisor:  Dave McComas and Jamie Rankin

Henry Yuan
Fall JP:  Implications of Resonance Locking on Titan’s Orbit: Migration through the Evection Resonance
Advisor:  Chris Spalding
Spring JP:  Optimization of LSST Transient Identifications using the Prime Focus Spectrograph
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Joshua Zou
Fall JP:  Transit Timing Variational Relevances to Mean Motion Resonance within the Tess Object of Interest Catalogue
Advisor:  Tansu Daylan
Spring JP:  (on leave)

Seniors 2020-2021

Tyler Eddy
Senior Thesis:  A Multifaceted Approach to Space Physics
Advisor:  David McComas, Jamie Rankin and Michael DeLuca
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, Space Science & Engineering, U Michigan

Mark Forese
Senior Thesis:  Planet Hunting: Searching for Long Period Exoplanets Utilizing the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope
Advisor: Joel Hartman
Postgraduate:  Battelle science and technology development

Jake Helton
Senior Thesis:  The Nebular Properties of Star-Forming Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts From LEGA-C
Advisor: Jenny Greene, Allison Storm
Postgraduate:  U Arizona, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Cade Keegan
Senior Thesis:  Title: Correlations Between Quasars and Their Host Galaxies with Hyper Suprime-Cam and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, Data Science (TBD)

Isabel Rosa Medlock
Senior Thesis:  Visualizing Electron Acceleration in Simulations of Collisionless Shocks
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Yale 

Alexander Menegas
Senior Thesis:  A Model for Spherically Symmetric Matter Collapse, Black Holes and Wormholes
Advisor:  Frans Pretorius
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, UK (TBD)

Alexandros Papamatthaiou
Senior Thesis:  Designing The Positioning System of The Space Physics Laboratory Vacuum Chamber and Calibrating SWAPI - NASA IMAP
Advisor:  Dave McComas and Jamie Rankin
Postgraduate:  Graduate School, MAE, ISAE-SUPAERO, Toulouse, France

Juliana Pulsinelli (leave of absence)

Shai Slav
Senior Thesis:  Bayesian Deep Learning for Large Scale Structure
Advisor:  Shirley Ho
Postgraduate:  Davidson Kempner Capital Management

Juniors 2020-2021

Zizi Coleman
Fall JP:  The Venus Water Problem: Examining Effects of EUV-scaled Flux & Solar Wind on Venusian Surface
Advisor:  Chris Spalding
Spring JP:  Catalog of Observed Candidate Planet Hosts in the APOGEE Survey
Advisor:  Rachael Beaton

Mark Dodici
Fall JP:  Orbital Evolution of L4 & L5 asteroids and Irregular Satellites of a Gas Giant around an Asymptotic Giant Branch Star
Advisor:  Chris Spalding
Spring JP:  A Semi-Analytic Model to Explain the Mediocre Growth of Brightest Cluster Galaxies
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Sydney Evans
Fall JP:  Understanding the Origins of Triangulum-Andromeda through Explorations of the Chemical Abundance Trends of the Outer Disk at Large Galactocentric Radii and Distance from the Midplane
Advisor:  Rachael Beaton
Spring JP:  Environmental Monitoring of the Princeton Space Physics Lab
Advisor:  Dave McComas and Jamie Rankin

JingjingGao (on leave)

Sinclaire Jones
Fall JP:  Stellar Parameters of M-dwarfs Observed with the Habitable-zone Planet Finder and TESS
Advisor:  Guomundur Stefansson
Spring JP:  The Hot Neptune Orbiting the Active M-dwarf TOI-2015: Planet Discovery and Detailed Stellar Characterization With HPF-SpecMatch
Advisor:  Guomundur Stefansson

Satuye Lacayo (on leave)

Gideon McFarland
Fall JP:  Evaluating The Spectral Properties of Hydrogen Emission Lines from The H30α Line
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Spring JP:  Identification and Analysis of Type 2 Quasar Candidate Spectra from The Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Christian Robles  (on leave)

Favian Paniagua Soto (pursuing veterinary medicine)

Seniors 2019-2020

Michelle Baird
Senior Thesis:  Host Galaxies of Quasars in Hyper Suprime-Cam:  Single, Dual, and Fading
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Postgraduate:  Private industry

Chris Choo
Senior Thesis:  Cosmic Chemical Evolution in and around Galaxies
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Postgraduate:  Private industry

Hector Cruz
Senior Thesis:  The Color Dependence of Galaxy Clustering Measured by the Hyper Suprime-Camera Survey
Advisor:  Jo Dunkley and Andrina Nicola
Postgraduate:  Johns Hopkins, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Elliot Davies
Senior Thesis:  Smoothing the Universe by Cosmological Contraction with Various Scalar Field Potentials
Advisor:  Paul Steinhardt
Postgraduate:  U Cambridge, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Ryan Golant
Senior Thesis:  The Answer, My Friend, is Blowing in the Stellar Wind:  The Impact of Early Stellar Feedback on the Interstellar Medium
Advisor:  Eve Ostriker
Postgraduate:  Columbia, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Liam Kelly
Senior Thesis:  Variability Analysis of Stars from TESS Sectors 6 & 7
Advisor:  Joel Hartman
Postgraduate:  US Military

Camille Liotine
Senior Thesis:  Simulation Analysis of High Mass X-Ray Binaries as Merging Binary Black Hole Progenitors
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall and Vicky Kalogera (Northwestern U)
Postgraduate:  Northwestern, Graduate School Astrophysics

Emma Louden
Senior Thesis:  The Geometry of Planetary Systems:  An Exploration of the Obliquities of Kepler Planet-Hosting Stars
Advisor:  Josh Winn
Postgraduate:  Yale, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Lucas Makinen
Senior Thesis:  Deep Learning 21cm Tomology and Inference in Cosmological Structure formation
Advisor:  Peter Melchior and Shirley Ho (CCA)
Postgraduate:  Astrophysics Research, Copenhagen; followed by graduate school

Malik Walker
Senior Thesis:  Investigating Kinetic Instabilities Within the Solar Wind Plasma Using Hybrid-Kinetic Particle-In Cell Code
Advisor:  Matt Kunz
Postgraduate:  Johns Hopkins, Graduate School, Astrophysics

Andrew Wu
Senior Thesis:  Finding voids billions of years in advance with machine learning
Advisor:  David Spergel and Paco Navarro
Postgraduate:  Georgia Tech, Graduate School Astrophysics

Chen Xie
Senior Thesis: SPACE DEBRIS: A SURVEY OF THE LEGAL REGIME 
 Why There is an Urgent Need for a New Binding Agreement
Advisor:  Chris Chyba and Neta Bahcall

Juniors 2019-2020

Tyler Eddy
Fall JP:  Discerning the Most Important Metrics for Analyzing Solar Energetic Particle Events
Advisor:  Dave McComas and Jamie Rankin
Spring JP:   Ribbon cutting:  Opening the path to acceleration processes observed by IBEX
Advisor:  Dave McComas, Eric Zirnstein and Pawel Swaczyna

Mark Forese
Fall JP:  Where is the Dark Matter?  Mass to Light in the Universe
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  Developing science instrumentation for the Simons Observatory for detecting primordial B-modes in the CMB
Advisor:  Lyman Page

Jake Helton
Fall JP:  The extended line-emitting nebulae surrounding PKS0454-22
Advisor:  Jenny Greene and Sean Johnson
Spring JP:  BAO+CMB Constraints on Spatial Curvature
Advisor:  Jo Dunkley

Cade Keegan
Fall JP:  Characterizing the noise in preliminary HATPI observations
Advisor:  Joel Hartman
Spring JP:   Stellar Contamination in Dual Quasar Candidates with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Isabel Rosa Marie Medlock
Fall JP:  Dispersion Measure Distributions of Fast Radio Bursts due to the Intergalactic Medium
Advisor:  Renyue Cen 
Spring JP:  Analysis of Vertical Structures of Edge-On Galaxies Using HSC-SSP
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Alexander Menegas
Fall JP:  Analytic approximations to the radiation curve emitted by rotating interstellar dust
Advisor:  Brandon Hensley
Spring JP:  Ultraviolet Spectral Signatures of Galaxies due to Helium Stars at the Epoch of Reionization
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Alexandros Papamatthaiou
Fall JP:  Redesigning the Cassini Ion Mass Spectrometer
Advisor:  Dave McComas and Jamie Rankin
Spring JP:  Simulating the breathing modes of the Hall Thruster using the Van der Pol Oscillator
Advisor:  Yevgeny Raitses

Juliana Pulsinelli
Fall JP:  Interstellar Medium Line Emission Due to Shocks at the Epoch of Reionization
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Spring JP:  Spectral Variability in V* CN Cha
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Shai Slav
Fall JP:  Searching for evidence of orbital decay of hot Jupiters with TESS
Advisor:  Josh Winn
Spring JP:  Hydrogen Radio Recombination Line Emission in Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Seniors 2018-2019

Carlos Anicetti
Senior Thesis:  Properties of Host Galaxies of Quasars as measured by Hyper Suprime-Cam
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Postgraduate:  Graduate School for Astrophysics,  Johns Hopkins University

Madelyn Broome
Senior Thesis:  Destruction of Wide Binaries by the Milky Way
Advisor:  David Spergel
Postgraduate:  Cambridge Masters, graduate school for Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz

Sam Moore
Senior Thesis:  Using the Hyper Suprime-Cam to investigate the Binggeli Effect
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Postgraduate:  Graduate school for Astrophysics, Edinburgh Scotland

Jacob Tyles
Senior Thesis:  Dynamic Assemblage of Binary Black Hole Mergers in Globular Clusters
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall and Johan Samsing
Postgraduate:  Masters in Scientific Computing, University of Pennyslvania

Chen Xie (graduating in 2020)
Senior Thesis:  Lessons Learned and the Decadal Surveys
Advisor:  David Spergel

Juniors 2018-2019

Chris Choo
Fall JP:  A Graphical Representation of the System of Exoplanets and an Examination of Essential Quantities
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Spring JP:  "Oumuamua" in our Solar System
Advisor:  Ed Turner

Hector Cruz
Fall JP:  Modelling the SED of the torus of a low mass SMBH in NGC 4395
Advisor:  Jenny Greene and Andy Goulding Spring JP:  The Splashback Radius of Galaxy Systems
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Elliot Davies
Fall JP:  Dark Matter candidates beyond WIMPs
Advisor:  Mariangela Lisanti
Spring JP:  Bound State Formation Rates of Wino, Higgsino and pseudo-Dirac Dark Matter
Advisor:  Tracy Slayter (IAS) and Neta Bahcall

Ryan Golant
Fall JP:  Galaxy Cluster Profiling via Non-Negative Matrix Factorization
Advisor:  Peter Melchior
Spring JP:  Solar Wind Simulations
Advisor:  Matt Kunz

Liam Kelly
Fall JP:  Correlation between gas emission and young stellar populations in EBOSS galaxies
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Cosmological Simulations
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Camille Liotine
Fall JP:  Constraining isocurvature perturbations
Advisor:  Jo Dunkley
Spring JP:  High Energy Astrophysics Numerical Simulations
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky

Emma Louden
Fall JP:  Characterization of HATS-34 and HATS-46 Using TESS and Gaia
Advisor:  Joel Hartman
Spring JP:  Mars Special Regions: Analysis of Feasibility
Advisor:  Chris Chyba

Malik Walker
Fall JP:  Intrinsic Alignments between Satellite Galaxies and their BCGs
Advisor:  Cristobal Sifon
Spring JP:  Electromagnetic precursors of merging neutron stars
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky

Andrew Wu
Fall JP:  An Analysis of Radial Velocity Data Characterizing the Orbit of Proxima b
Advisor:  Josh Winn
Spring JP:  Examination of the Contribution of Cold Streams and Other Environmental Factors in the Formation of Grand Design Spiral Structure
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Seniors 2017-2018

Jonah Donnenfield
Senior Thesis:  Photometric Follow-up of Transiting Planet Candidates:  Optimization, Automation and Data Reduction
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos and Joel Hartman
Post Graduate:  research fellowship at UCSF prior to medical school

Teva Ilan
Senior Thesis:  Constraining the Relativistic Thermal and Bulk Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effects
Advisor:  Jo Dunkley and Mathew Madhavacheveril
Post Graduate:  U Wisconsin at Madison for graduate studies in astrophysical sciences

Jin Soo Lim 
Senior Thesis:  Modeling the Surface Brightness Profiles of Quasar Host Galaxies using the Sersic Function
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  CBRE Group (commercial real estate and investment)

Bethlee Lindor
Senior Thesis:  Clusters of Galaxies:  Mass Determination/ Methods, Biases, and Precision Cosmology
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  U Washington Seattle for graduate studies in astrophysical sciences

Alisabeth Marstellar
Senior Thesis:  Modeling Galaxy Bias with Artificial Neural Networks
Advisor:  Marcel Schmittfull (IAS) and Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  CSafe

Amanda Newmark
Senior Thesis:  An Extended Model of KH 15D:  Determining the Structure of the Circumbinary Ring After the Reemergence of Star B
Advisor:  Josh Winn
Post Graduate:  Analytic consultant, IBM

Elias Rubin 
Senior Thesis:  Numerical Simulations of Runaway Star Growth in Global Clusters
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Post Graduate:  Google

Tristan Schrader
Senior Thesis:  The Stellar Fraction as a Function of System Mass and Scale
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Biochemistry lab in Brazil; also volunteering with mobile surgical center serving indigenous communities in the Amazon

Juniors 2017-2018

Carlos Anicetti
Fall JP:  New Substellar Members of the UCL and LCC Subgroups of Scorpius-Centaurus 
Advisor:  Fred Moolekamp
Spring JP:  Color dependence of variability in active galactic nuclei
Advisor:  Neven Caplar

Madelyn Broome
Fall JP:  Forecasting T.E.S.S.'s Ability to Improve Calculations of Orbital Decay Parameters for Hot Jupiters
Advisor:   Josh Winn
Spring JP:  Hunting for evidence of AGN feedback in a quasar-driven superbubble
Advisor:  Jenny Greene and Andy Goulding

Chris Choo (returning Fall 2018)
Fall JP:
Advisor:
Spring JP:
Advisor:

Sam Moore
Fall JP:  Modelling the Surface Temperatures of Exoplanets 
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Spring JP:  Chaos and resonance in the inner stellar halo from the Galactic bar
Advisor:  Aidan Price-Whelan

Jacob Tyles
Fall JP:  Spin Evolution of a Massive Stellar Binary as a Formation Mechanism for Field Binary Black Holes
Advisor:  Kenta Hotokezaka (Spitzer Fellow)
Spring JP:  Searching for narrow-line quasars in the eBOSS survey of the SDSS
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Chen Xie
Fall JP:  Estimating Astronomical Distances with HR-Diagram Analysis of Astrophotographs
Advisor:  Robert Vanderbei
Spring JP:  Shapes of galaxy clusters from HSC data
Advisor:  Michael Strauss


Seniors 2016-17

Samuel Cabot
Senior Thesis:  The Baryon Content of Galaxy Systems:  Observations and Simulations
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Post Graduate:  Cambridge Masters; Yale PhD in astrophysical sciences

Alice Eltvedt
Senior Thesis:  The Quasar Proximity Effect and the Intergalactic Medium at Low Redshift
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Boryana Hadzhiyska
Senior Thesis:  Exploring Non-Standard Extensions to the Standard Model of the Early Universe 
Advisors:  Jo Dunkley, David Spergel

Post Graduate:  Cambridge Masters; Harvard PhD in astrophysical sciences

Arianna Lanz
Senior Thesis:  Think Planck ACT: A Cross-Correlation of the CIB and CMB using Planck, ACT and UltraVISTA
Advisor:  David Spergel

Post Graduate:  software engineering

Jin Soo Lim (on leave this year)
Senior Thesis:
Advisor:

Revant Nayar (returning January, 2017)
Senior Thesis:  Field Theoretical Approaches to Large Scale Structure
Advisor:  Matias Zaldarriaga

Katelyn Neese
Senior Thesis:  Examining Morphologies of Host Galaxies of Quasars using the Hyper-Suprime Cam
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Tamar Novetsky
Senior Thesis:  A Search for Signatures of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in the Broad-Band Spectral Energy Distribution of Quasars
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Post Graduate:  Puttkammer Fellowship in Criminal Justice with the Petey Greene Program

Elias Rubin (graduating January 2018)
Senior Thesis:  Cosmological simulations
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Juniors 2016-17

Catherine Blume
Fall JP:  Plasma Astrophysics
Advisor:  Matt Kunz
Spring JP:  Predicting Catastrophe:  How Self-Organized Criticality Impacts Flare Forecasting
Advisor:  Hantao Ji

Chris Choo (on leave this year)
Fall JP:
Advisor:
Spring JP:
Advisor:

Jonah Donnenfield 
Fall JP: PCA analysis of sky spectra in SDSS
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Exoplanet Habitability: An Ongoing Discussion
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Angel Fan
Fall JP:  The Proximus Centauri planet
Advisor:  Ed Turner
Spring JP:  (on leave)

Teva Ilan
Fall JP:  Binary - Single Scatterings and Gravitational Inspirals
Advisor:  Johan Samsing
Spring JP:  3C190: Probing The Extreme AGN 'Blowout' Phase of Galaxy Evolution
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Bethlee Lindor
Fall JP:  Exoplanets
Advisor:  Joel Hartman
Spring JP  Targeted Search for Milky Way Satellites Using HSC
Advisor:  Adrian Price-Whelan

Alisabeth Marsteller
Fall JP:  Supermassive Black Holes versus Galaxy Relations
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  Analysis of unique features of Type II quasars
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Amanda Newmark
Fall JP:  Weak Lensing
Advisor:  Elinor Medezinski
Spring JP:  Late Pre-Main-Sequence Evolution
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Tristan Schrader
Fall JP:  Galaxy evolution
Advisor:  Jenny Greene, Andy Goulding
Spring JP:  The Plasma Physics of Proto-Planetary Disks
Advisor:  Matt Kunz


Seniors 2015-16

Stephen (Nicholas) Barton
Senior Thesis:  Planet Populations
Advisor:  Tim Morton and Edwin Turner
Post Graduate:  Imperial College for Graduate School, Applied Math, followed by Rhodes Scholar, University of Oxford

Eve Matthaey
Senior Thesis:  High-order particle deposition in particle-in-cell simulations
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Post Graduate:  Software engineer at Bloomberg, NYC

Oderah (Justin) Otor
Senior Thesis:  Revealing a Massive Companion in the Kepeler-56 System
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos [& John Johnson (CfA)]
Post Graduate:  Research in Chile

Jamila Pegues
Senior Thesis:  Analyzing the Distribution and Chemical Evolution of Major Nitrogen Carriers and the N/O Ratio within Theoretical Protoplanetary Disks
Advisor:  Bruce Draine [& Karin Oberg CfA)]
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Roberta Raileanu
Senior Thesis:  SDSS/HSC Extragalactic Observations
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Graduate  School, Computer Science, New York University

Thomas Gonzalez Roberts
Senior Thesis:  Measuring Break-ups:  A Statistical Analysis of Space Debris Collisions in Low-Earth Orbit from 1958 to 2015
Advisor:  Christopher Chyba
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Data Science,University of Edinburgh

Nabeel Sarwar
Senior Thesis:  SDSS/HSC Extragalactic Observations
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:

Margaret (Maggie) Thompson
Senior Thesis:  A Model for Astrometric Detection and Characterization of Multi-Exoplanet Systems
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Carnegie Institute for Science, Washington, DC

Sandy (Sihan) Yuan
Senior Thesis:  Photometric Identification and Studies of Ultra Diffuse Galaxies In Hyper Suprime-Cam
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Juniors 2015-16

Samuel Cabot
Fall JP:  BPT characterization of star forming galaxies ultra-high resolution cosmological hydronamic simulations
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Spring JP:  "Transverse Peculiar Velocity Estimates of LEDA 69457:  The Einstein Cross”
Advisor:  Jeremy Goodman

Alice Eltvedt
Fall JP:  Identifying Quasars with N_v/Ly_a Line Area Ratios>1 from the SDSS-III DR12
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  "A Catalog of Quasars with Extreme NV/Ly alpha Ratios"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Boryana Hadzhiyska
Fall JP:  Recovering the Tidal Field in the Projected Galaxy Distribution
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Second Order Lagrangian Perturbations for the Baryonic Fluid after Recombination
Advisor:  David Spergel

Arianna Lanz
Fall JP:  The Photometric Properties of Dust in the Intracluster Medium
Advisor:  Nick Battaglia
Spring JP:  "The Causes of Variance in Star Formation Rates in Galaxies over Time"
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Jin Soo Lim
Fall JP:  Numerical Analysis on the Effect of Orbital Coplanarity in Transit Survey
Advisor:  Ewin Turner
Spring JP:  "Host Galaxies of Quasars in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Katelyn Neese
Fall JP:  Using Annual Modulation to Identify Theories of Dark Matter
Advisor:  Vera Gluscevic (IAS) and Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  “Testing virial mass estimates of GMCs using numerical simulations of galactic disks”
Advisor:  Eve  Ostriker

Tamar Novetsky
Fall JP:  Analyzing the Role of Collision sin [OII] Emissions Using Laozi Simulations
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Spring JP:  "Physical Decomposition of Sky Spectra from the SDSS BOSS Survey"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Elias Rubin
Fall JP:  Numerical Simulations of a Self-Gravitating, Isothermal, Planar Atmosphere
Advisor:  Aaron Skinner and Eve Ostriker
Spring JP:  Using Deep Autoencoders for Spectrograph Data Reconstruction
Advisor: 


Seniors 2014-15

Ivo Crnkovic-Rubsamen
Senior Thesis:  Inclined Planetary Orbits in Accretion Disks:  A Preliminary study with Athena++
Advisor:  James Stone
Post Graduate:  Bridgewater, a global macro hedgefund

Dayton Martindale
Senior Thesis:  Star-Cross’d:  Coming together in an expanding universe
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall & Michael Lemonick
Post Graduate:  Graduate School Science Journalism UC Berkeley

Elizabeth Paul
Senior Thesis:  Passive tracers in ATHENA:  implementation and applications to turbulent star formation
Advisor:  Eve Ostriker
Post Graduate:  Graduate School Astrophysics U Maryland

Alexandra Pleus
Senior Thesis:  The Effects of Spectral Resolution in Detecting Oxygen in Earth-like Exoplanets
Advisor:  Tim Morton & Adam Burrows
Post Graduate:  U Hawaii

Morgan Presley
Senior Thesis:  Quantifying the Degree of Fine-tuning in Models of Inflation
Advisor:  Paul Steinhardt (PHY)
Post Graduate:  Graduate School Astrophysics UC Berkeley

Juniors 2014-15

Stephen (Nicholas) Barton
Fall JP:  Light Pollution At Princeton University
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos
Spring JP:  Simulating Stellar Evolution with MESA
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Eve Matthaey
Fall JP:  The Contribution of Red Super Giants to the K-Band Luminosity of Spiral Galaxies
Advisor:  Jenny Greene & Arjen van der Wel (Max Planck Inst.)
Spring JP:  A Comparison of Photometry for Quasars in SDSS and HSC
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Revant Nayar
Fall JP:  Dynamics and Instabilities of Vortex Rings
Advisor:  Steve Gubser (PHY)
Spring JP:  Impact of Lorentz Violation on Scalar Fields in the Early Universe
Advisor:  Paul Steinhardt

Oderah (Justin) Otor
Fall JP:  Spectral Categorization of Compact Galaxies via SDSS Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  Scouring and Dust in Supermassive Elliptical Galaxies
Advisor:  Jenny Greene

Jamila Pegues
Fall JP:  Gearing Up To Cross The Redshift Desert
Advisor:  Jenny Greene
Spring JP:  Distinguishing Single-Transit Planetary Systems From Astrophysical False Positives
Advisor:  Tim Morton

Roberta Raileanu
Fall JP:  Superbubbles Driven By Multiple Supernovae in The Two-Phase Interstellar Medium
Advisor:  Eve Ostriker
Spring JP:  Predicting Rotation Periods of Stars From Autocorrelation
Advisor:  Tim Morton

Thomas Gonzalez Roberts
Fall JP:  Effect of Grain Shape on FIR Polarization Efficiencies
Advisor:  Bruce Draine
Spring JP:  Anti-Satellite Weapons in the United States, The Soviet Union, And China:  A Histrorical and Political Synopsis
Advisor:  Chris Chyba

Nabeel Sarwar
Fall JP:  Exploratory Analysis in Astrophysical Cartography
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Spring JP:  Case Study of Tidal Dissipation in Various Hot Jupiters and Observations on Rotational Parameters and Quality Factors
Advisor:  Kaloyan Penev

Margaret (Maggie) Thompson
Fall JP:  A Search for Close Binary Companions to Kepler Host Stars
Advisor:  Tim Morton
Spring JP:  The Future of Exoplanet Science
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos

Sandy (Sihan) Yuan
Fall JP:  Spectroscopic Identification of AGNs and Type II Quasars at Redshift Below 1 in SDSS-III/BOSS
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  A New Light on the Physical Nature of the Most Metal-Poor Damped Lyman-a System At z~3
Advisor:  Renyue Cen


Seniors 2013-14

Frederick Addy
Senior Thesis:  "AGN Fueling:  Alignments Between Circumnuclear Structures and Radio Jets?"
Advisor:  Jenny Greene
Post Graduate:  Clean Energy Consulting

Benjamin Cook
Senior Thesis:  "The Distribution of Dark Matter and Baryons in the Universe"
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Harvard - Graduate School, Astronomy

Tomer Yavetz
Senior Thesis:  "Testing for Non-Gaussianity"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  McKinsy Consulting Company

Michael (Zhaoxi) Zhang
Senior Thesis:  "High-precision multi-color DSLR photometry"
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos
Post Graduate:  Microsoft

Juniors 2013-14

Ivo Crnkovic-Rubsamen
Fall JP:  “Investigating Possible Sources of Planet Formation:  An Analysis of Proto-Planetary Vortices in Accretion Disks”
Advisor:  James Stone
Spring JP:  “Modeling Type Ia Supernovae in anticipation of INTEGRAL”
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Dayton Martindale
Fall JP:  “Magnification Due to Microlensing by a Lone Star”
Advisor:  Jeremy Goodman
Spring JP:  “The Charm of Small Telescopes,” or, Begging for Planets, HAT in Hand”
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos, Michael Lemonic

Elizabeth Paul
Fall JP:  “Quantifying Orientation Effects on Detection of Dust Obscured Galaxies”
Advisor:  Renyue Cen
Spring JP:  “Host Galaxies of Quasars in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Alexandra Pleus
Fall JP:  “Analysis of Exoplanet Properties by Detection Method”
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Spring JP:  “Identification of Type II Quasars from SDSS-III BOSS spectra”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Morgan Presley
Fall JP:  “Implications of the Initial-Final Mass Relation for Low-Mass Stars on Prescriptions for RGB/AGB Mass Loss”
Advisor:  Dave Speigel, IAS
Spring JP:  “The Effects of the Eddington Factor on Turbulence in Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulations of a Galactic Disk”
Advisor:  Eve Ostriker


Seniors 2012-13

Lehman Garrison
Senior Thesis:  “Galactic Warps”
Advisors:  David Spergel, Naoki Yoshida (Univ. of Tokyo)
Post Graduate:  Harvard - Graduate School, Astronomy

Allison Hume
Senior Thesis:  “Optimizing High-Energy Astrophysical Simulations”
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Post Graduate:

Daniel Minkin
Senior Thesis:  “Spectroscopy of the Outer Parts of Galaxies”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:

Carolina Nunez
Senior Thesis:  “Luminous Red Galaxies and Clusters at z~0.7”
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:

Prachi Parihar
Senior Thesis:  "The Topology of Large Scale Structure"
Advisor:  Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  Caltech - Graduate School, Astronomy

Joel Zinn
Senior Thesis:  "Searching for a Magnification Signal with SDSS Galaxies and WISE AGN"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:

Juniors 2012-13

Frederick Addy
Fall JP:  “A Behavioral Analysis of American Market Responses to the Greek Credit Crisis”
Advisor:  Michael Kraus (Bendheim Center for Finance), Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:  “The Refractive Properties of Venus's Atmosphere”
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Benjamin A. Cook
Fall JP:  “ Photometric analysis of asteroid 7 (Iris) and other minor planets with the HATNet survey”
Advisor:  Gaspar Bakos
Spring JP:  "Quantitative inspection of quasars and their spectroscopic properties using the SDSS Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Tomer Yavetz
Fall JP:  “ Modeling Submillimeter Galaxies”
Advisor:  Neelima Sehgal (Stony Brook Univ.), David Spergel
Spring JP:  "The Importance of Earth's Oblateness for Low-Earth Satellite Orbits."
Advisor:  Scott Tremaine (IAS)

Michael (Zhaoxi) Zhang
Fall JP:  “Tidal Dissipation and Stellar Spin-up in Hot Jupiter Systems”
Advisor:  Kaloyan Penev, Astro postdoc
Spring JP:  “Current sheets and magnetic reconnection in MHD accretion disk simulations”
Advisor:  James Stone


Seniors 2011-12

Rachel Alexandroff
Senior Thesis:  "Discovery of High Redshift Obscured Quasars in SDSS-III BOSS and Further Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Investigation"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Johns Hopkins University Graduate School, Astronomy

Matt DiDonato
Senior Thesis:  "Astronomy As a Vehicle for High School Science Education"
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  NASA Endeavor Fellowship:  Columbia University, Teaching College Graduate School, STEM Physics/Astrophysics Education/Teaching at Haddonfield Memorial High School, NJ

Juan Farfan
Senior Thesis:  "Supernovae Gamma-Ray Line & Hard X-Ray Continuum Emissions"
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Post Graduate:  Private Industry

Margaret Shaw
Senior Thesis:  "A Novel Thrust Measurement Method For Plasma Rockets with Magnetic Nozzles Using B-field Measurements"
Advisor:  Jeremy Goodman and Edgar Choueiri (MAE)
Post Graduate:  MIT Graduate School, Astronomy

Mary (Shangjun) Zhang
Senior Thesis:  "Baryons, Mass, and Light in the Universe"
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Harvard University Graduate School, Astronomy

Juniors 2011-12

Lehman Garrison
Fall JP:  "Scaling the Memory Wall:  Filtering in TRISTAN-MP"
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Spring JP:  "An Online Adaptive Algorithm for High-Resolution Mapping with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle"
Advisor:  Chris Clark (COS)

Allison Hume
Fall JP:  "Cluster Mass versus Richness Relation"
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Spring JP:
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky

Daniel Minkin
Fall JP:  “A Review of the Literature Concerning NGC 6791 and a Need for New Calibrations Concerning He-Flash Avoidance in White Dwarfs”
Advisor:  James Gunn
Spring JP:  "An Analysis of He-Flash Avoidance in White Dwarfs"
Advisor:  James Gunn

Carolina Nunez
Fall JP:  "Simulations of the X-Ray Sky"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Spring JP:
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Prachi Parihar
Fall JP:  "Observation of the 21 cm line"
Advisor:  Daniel Marlow (PHY)
Spring JP:
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Joel Zinn
Fall JP:  "Gravitational Lenses in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Luminous Red Galaxy Sample"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:
Advisor:  Richard Gott


Seniors 2010-11

Jared Crooks
Senior Thesis:  "Funding the Future:  A Study of the Astronomy & Astrophysics Decadal Survey and the Budgetary Process"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, MPA, Science Policy

Michael Gordon
Senior Thesis:  "In Search of Asymmetry in ACT-detected SZ Clusters"
Advisor:  Lyman Page
Post Graduate:  Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Research

Andrew Peck
Senior Thesis:  "On the Injection of Particles into Fermi Acceleration in Collisionless Shocks"
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Post Graduate:  Private Sector Position

Zachary Slepian
Senior Thesis:  "Slow Roll Dark Energy"
Advisor:  Richard Gott

 Post Graduate:  Harvard University Graduate School, Astronomy

Aaron Smargon
Senior Thesis:  "A Hanbury Brown-Twiss-Inspired Analysis of Coronagraphic Images"
Advisor:  Jason Fleischer (EE), Jeremy Kasdin (MAE), Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Start-Up Co.

Sarah Wellons
Senior Thesis:  "Simulations of External Shocks in Gamma-Ray Bursts"
Advisor:  Anatoly Spitkovsky
Post Graduate:  NSF Fellowship Harvard University Graduate School, Astronomy

Juniors 2010-11

Rachael Alexandroff
Fall JP:  “Comparing the True Masses of Two Exoplanets Based on a Radial Velocity Measurement of Their M sin(i) Values”
Advisor:  Ed Turner
Spring JP:  “A Search for High Redshift Type II Quasars from the SDSS BOSS Survey"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Matt DiDonato
Fall JP:  “Examining the Colors of SDSS Quasar Host Galaxies”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall

Daniel Minkin
Fall JP:  “A Review of the Literature Concerning NGC 6791 and a Need for New Calibrations Concerning He-Flash Avoidance in White Dwarfs”
Advisor:  Jim Gunn
Spring JP:  “Analysis of NGC 6791 and a Need for New Calibrations Concerning He-Flash Avoidance in White Dwarfs”
Advisor:  Jim Gunn

Margaret Shaw
Fall JP:  “The Effect of a Minimum Detectable Velocity Amplitude on the Msin(i) Distribution of Exoplanets in RV Surveys”
Advisor:  Ed Turner
Spring JP:  “Modeling Telluric H2 0 Absorption:  Prospects for Precise RV Measurements of Low-mass Stars”
Advisor:  Cullen Blake

Mary (Shangjun) Zhang
Fall JP:  “Dust Extinction of Galaxies as a Function of Inclination”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  "Magnetic Activity in Dwarf M Stars with White Dwarf Companions"
Advisor:  Gillian Knapp


Seniors 2009-10

Courtney Dressing
Senior Thesis:  "New Frontiers in Exoplanet Detection:  High Contrast Imaging With Subaru"
Advisor:  Edwin Turner and Michael McElwain
Post Graduate:  Harvard Graduate School, Astronomy

Rebecca Harper
Senior Thesis:  "Statistical Comparison of Binary Stars and Planetary Systems"
Advisor:  J. Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  Int'l. Economic Development

Ted Price
Senior Thesis:  "Examining SDSS Extended Quasars at High Redshift and Unresolved Quasars at Low Redshift"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  U of Southern CA, MBA

Bilhuda Rasheed
Senior Thesis:  "Where Are the Missing Baryons in Clusters? "
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Energy and Environmental Project in Pakistan

Kathryn Silverio
Senior Thesis:  "Characterizing the Emission From Interstellar Dust at Microwave" Frequencies
Advisor:  David Spergel and Aurelien Fraisse
Post Graduate:  UC Berkeley Graduate School, Astronomy

Hassen Yesuf
Senior Thesis:  "Dynamical Mass Estimates of the Sloan Great Wall"
Advisor:  J. Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  UCSC Graduate School, Astronomy


Seniors 2008-09

Jessica Kloss
Senior Thesis:  “Intrinsic Galaxy Alignments”
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School in Science Journalism, Boston University

Ragnhild Lunnan
Senior Thesis:  “Topology of Luminous Red Galaxies”
Advisor:  Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Juniors 2008-09

Courtney Dressing
Fall JP:  “Activity of M Dwarfs in White Dwarf – M Dwarf Binary Systems"
Advisor:  Jill Knapp
Spring JP:  “Habitable Planets: The Effects of Eccentricity”
Advisor:  Dave Spiegel

Rebecca Harper
Fall JP:  “Conceptions of Center and Light Metaphysics in Robert Grosseteste’s De Luce”
Advisor:  Vance Smith (ENG) and Neta Bahcall (AST)
Spring JP:  “Fragmentation of ‘Killer’ Asteroid”
Advisor:  Christopher Chyba

Michael Medeiros
Fall JP:  “Designing and Building a Custom Fourier Transform Spectrometer”
Advisor:  Suzanne Staggs (PHY)
Spring JP:  “Optimizing Athena: Implementing Super Time Stepping for Numerical Integration”
Advisor:  James Stone

Ted Price
Fall JP:  “Accretion Discs with Power-Law Viscosities”
Advisor:  Roman Rafikov
Spring JP:  “Financial Market Volatilities”
Advisors:  Neta Bahcall (Astro) and Ronnie Sircar (ORFE)

Bilhuda Rasheed
Fall JP:  “Giant Planets as Loaded Polytropes”
Advisor:  Roman Rafikov
Spring JP:  “Radioactive Dating Methods”
Advisor:  Adam Burrows

Kathryn Silverio
Fall JP:  “Can TiO Explain Thermal Inversions in the Upper Atmospheres of Irradiated Giant Planets?”
Advisor:  Adam Burrows
Spring JP:  “Sub-Structure in Clusters of Galaxies Using SDSS”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Hassen Yesuf
Fall JP:  “High-Redshift Narrow Line Seyfert Galaxies 1 from SDSS”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Measuring Baryon Acoustic Oscillations Using Clusters of Galaxies”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall


Seniors 2007-08

Zoe Buck
Senior Thesis:  “Cross-correlation of Galaxies and Quasars in SDSS Stripe 82”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Science Journalism for a year, then graduate school

Katherine Miller
Senior Thesis:  “Quantifying the Bullet Cluster:  Pairwise Velocity Distributions in N-Body Cosmological Simulations”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate

Science Education and Outreach

Penny Pelton
Senior Thesis:  “Identifying Galaxy-QSO Superpositions in the SDSS”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Analyst for Princeton Consultants

Valery Rashkov
Senior Thesis:  “Variability in Sloan’s Equatorial Stripe:  A Search for Optically Violent Variable Objects”
Advisor:  David Spergel and Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, UC, Santa Cruz

Gregory Snyder
Senior Thesis:  “White Dwarf Companions: Colors in SDSS and 2MASS”
Advisor:  Jill Knapp
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard Astronomy PHD program

Juniors 2007-08

Jessica Kloss
Fall JP:  “Galaxies and Their Nearest Neighbors”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Classifying Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:  Robert Lupton

Ragnhild Lunnan
Fall JP:  “Spectroscopic Properties of Radio Galaxies in the SDSS”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Computer Self-Gravity Using a Multigrid Method”
Advisor:  James Stone


Seniors 2006-07

Zach Berta
Senior Thesis:  "The Rosy Matched Filter: An Automated Red-Sequence Cluster Finder"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

William Dahab
Senior Thesis:  "Super-Massive Black Holes in Quasars "
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Wall Street Analyst

Greg Haislip
Senior Thesis:  “Maximum BCG:  Finding Clusters in COSMOS"
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall and Dave Johnson, Caltech
Post Graduate:  Naval Officers Program, Intelligence and Cryptology

Kelly Halford
Senior Thesis:  "Aim For The Moon, At Least If You Miss, You Will End Up Among The Stars:  Determining The Pointing Of The Atacama Cosmology Telescope"
Advisor:  David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, UCLA

Lorne Hofstetter
Senior Thesis:  “Portrait of the Sloan Great Wall”
Advisor:  Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  General Electric’s Global Research Center; and graduate school in engineering

Lear Janiv
Senior Thesis:  “The Local Galactic Escape Velocity:  The Mass of the Milky Way”
Advisor:  Jill Knapp
Post Graduate:  Goldman Sachs, Credit Derivates Trader

Ariel Klainerman
Senior Thesis:  “A Conformal Journey to the Center of the Earth: Extending the Map of the Universe Down to the Quark”
Advisor:  Richard Gott
Post Graduate:  Finances/Consulting Sector ; Air Force

Blake Martin
Senior Thesis:  “The Scale Dependence of The Baryon Mass Fraction”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:   Medical School

Corey Ritter
Senior Thesis:  “Coupling the QUIET Receiver to the ACT Telescope: A Simple Two-Lens Solution”
Advisor:   Suzanne Staggs
Post Graduate:   Military, Army

Juniors 2006-07

Zoe Buck
Fall JP:  “Identifying Pre-Main-Sequence-Stars Using SDSS Spectroscopy”
Advisor:  Jill Knapp
Spring JP:  "Accurately Determining Galaxy Cluster Parameters using a Matched Filter Method"
Advisor:  David Spergel

Katherine Miller
Fall JP:  “Why Are They Pointing at Us? Are BL-Lac Objects Messages from Aliens at the Edge of the Universe?"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:   "Oh Be a Fine Girl, Kiss Me Like That "
Advisor:   Jill Knapp

Penny Pelton 
Fall JP:  "Selecting Radio Galaxies in the SDSS"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  "Developing Photometric Search Methods to Identify T Tauri Candidates in the Taurus Cloud"
Advisor:  Jill Knapp

Valery Rashkov
Fall JP:  “The Search for Faint Galaxies in the SDSS Sky Fibers ”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Photometric Redshift Determinations”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall  and Ofer Lahav, UCL

Gregory Snyder
Fall JP:  “Looking for Luminous Red Galaxies Using SDSS DR5 Photometry”
Advisor:  Jim Gunn
Spring JP:  "Magnetized Shock-Cloud Interactions ”
Advisor:  Jim Stone


Seniors 2005-06

Emmett Carlson
Senior Thesis:  “Hybrid Universes Formed by Matching Schwarzschild Solutions to Incomplete Spherical Solutions”
Advisor:  Jeremy Goodman
Post Graduate:  Teaching Math/Physics

Mark Daniels
Senior Thesis:  “A Modular Diffraction Simulator for use in the Terrestrial Planet Finder Laboratory”
Advisor:  David Spergel (Astrophysical Sciences) and Ruslan Belikov (Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering)
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, MAE, Princeton University.

Maggie Kirkland 
Senior Thesis:  “Estimating the Number of Habitable Planets in the Galaxy”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Graduate School,Cornell University, Neurobiology and Behavior

Martin Niederste-Ostholt
Senior Thesis:  “Alignment of Brightest Cluster Galaxies with their Host Clusters”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Cambridge University, Institute of Astronomy

James Wray
Senior Thesis:  “High-Dispersion Spectroscopy of Europa and Enceladus: Probing the Tenuous Atmospheres of Active Icy Moons”
Advisor:  Ed Turner
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astronomy,Planetary Science, Cornell University

Juniors 2005-06

Zach Berta
Fall JP:  “From Dragons and Toads to Dopplegrams: The Science of Helioseismology”
Advisor:  Aristotle Socrates
Spring JP:  “Work in Progress on the Detection of Galaxy Clusters”
Advisor:  David Spergel

William Ezra Dahab
Fall JP:  “A Method for Analyzing Bright Objects in Sloan Digital Sky Survey to Search or Bright Quasars”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Lifetime of Meteors in Planetary Systems, with Relation to Lithopanspermia”
Advisor:  Ed Turner

Greg Haislip
Fall JP:  “Disk Origin for S-Stars in Galactic Center?”
Advisor:  Andrew Youdin
Spring JP:  “Examining the Relationship between H Luminosity, [OIII] Luminosity, Spectral Line Width, and Other Relevant Spectral Line Strengths in AGN and Starburst Galaxies”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Kelly Halford
Fall JP:  “Carbon White Dwarfs of the SDSS DR4”
Advisor:  Gillian Knapp
Spring JP:  “Temperature Evolution in the Intergalactic Medium”
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Lorne Hofstetter
Fall JP:  “Searching for White Dwarfs in the Galactic Halo”
Advisor:  Gillian Knapp
Spring JP:  “Characterizing the Environment of Low Redshift Luminous Red Galaxies”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Lear Janiv
Fall JP:  “Cluster CMB Polarization Signal as a Tracer of Dark Energy”
Advisor:  David Spergel
Spring JP:  “Density Dependant Metal Distribution as a Function of Redshift”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall and Renyue Cen

Ariel Klainerman
Fall JP:  “The ACT Project: Extracting the Thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect from Simulated Sky Maps”
Advisor:  David Spergel
Spring JP:  “What is the Probability that a Highly Redshifted AGN with Narrow H is Type I"
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Blake Martin
Fall JP:  “Intrinsically Interesting Objects of the SDSS”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Gaseous Halos Around Galaxies”
Advisor:  Renyue Cen

Corey Ritter
Fall JP:  “Exploring the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Trouble List Spectra – A Fishing Expedition”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss
Spring JP:  “Magnetic Shielding in the Atacama Cosmology Telescope”
Advisor:  Suzanne Staggs


Seniors 2004-05

Daniel Miller
Senior Thesis:   “The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapon Technology in Iran”
Advisor:   Hal Feiveson (WWS) and Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:   State Department

Joseph Muñoz
Senior Thesis:   “Model Dependence of the Primordial Density Perturbation Spectrum on Small Scales”
Advisor:   Paul Steinhardt (Physics) and Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Rob Siverd
Senior Thesis:  “Small Telescope Earthshine Observation”
Advisor:  Ed Turner and David Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astronomy, Ohio State University

Nicolas Teh
Senior Thesis:  “An Analytical Approach to Singularity Theorems in GR”
Advisor:  Sergiu Klainerman (Math) and Jeremy Goodman
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

Juniors 2004-05

Emmett Carlson
Fall JP:   “A Search for Halo White Dwarf Candidates Using Proper Motion from SDSS”
Advisor:   Gillian Knapp
Spring JP:   “Paradoxes Involving Time Travel”
Advisor:   Hans Halvorson (Philosophy) and J. Richard Gott

Mark Daniels
Fall JP:   “A Method for Inferring Surface Data from Planets with Variable Cloud Cover”
Advisor:   Edwin L. Turner
Spring JP:   “Determining Properties of Hydrogen Clouds Using Quasars as Light Sources”
Advisor:   Ed Jenkins

Maggie Kirkland
Fall JP:   “Gravitational Microlensing in the Presence of a Planetary Disk”
Advisor:   Scott Tremaine
Spring JP:   “Detectability of Molecular Hydrogen with IRAC”
Advisor:   Bruce Draine

Martin Niederste-Ostholt
Fall JP:   “Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Disks”
Advisor:   Andrew Youdin
Spring JP:   “Searching for Stars that are Escaping the Galaxy”
Advisor:   Gillian Knapp

James Wray
Fall JP:   “A New Technique for Galaxy Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:   James E. Gunn
Spring JP:   “Simulation Studies of Supercluster Properties and Evolution”
Advisor:   Neta Bahcall


Seniors 2003-04

Philip F. Hopkins
Senior Thesis:   “Cluster Alignments and Ellipticities in LCDM Cosmology”
Advisor:   Neta A. Bahcall
Post Graduate:   Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Madhuri Kaul
Senior Thesis:   “Emissivity of Stacked Corrugated Feed Horn”
Advisor:   Suzanne Staggs, Neta Bahcall
Post Graduate:   Graduate School, Astrophysics, University of Pennsylvania

Joshua Younger
Senior Thesis:  “Large-Scale Structure in LCDM Cosmology”
Advisor:  Neta A. Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Graduate Schooll, Astrophysics, Harvard

Juniors 2003-04

Daniel Miller
Fall JP:  “Circumstellar Disk Theory and its Applications”
Advisor:  Marc Kuchner
Spring JP:  “Absolute Magnitudes and Tangential Velocities of Brown Dwarfs”
Advisor:  Gillian Knapp

Joseph Muñoz
Fall JP:  “A Test for Residual Foregrounds in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Data with the Temperature-Polarization Correlation”
Advisor:  David Spergel
Spring JP:  “Geometrical Effects of Anti-de Sitter Space on the Behavior of Force-Mediating Bosons”
Advisor:  Richard Gott

Rob Siverd
Fall JP:  “Classification of Distant Radio Objects”
Advisor:  Zeljko Ivezic
Spring JP:  “Identification of BL Lacertae Objects from SDSS Spectra”
Advisor:  Michael Strauss

Nicholas Teh
Fall JP:  “On Conformal Symmetry”
Advisor:  Igor Klebanov, Neta A. Bahcall
Spring JP:  “Applications of Operator K-Theory motivated by the Bell’s Inequality in Algebraic QFT”
Advisor:   Hans Halvorson, Neta Bahcall


Seniors 2002-03

Cullen Blake
Senior Thesis:  “A Search for Transiting Extrasolar Planets Around Nearby L Dwarfs” “Photometry with the Super-Wide-Field ASAS III Camera”
Advisor:  Bohdan Paczynski, David N. Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Joshua Schroeder
Senior Thesis:  “Carbon Stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, University of Colorado

Charles Steinhardt
Senior Thesis:  “Constraints on Field Theoretical Models for Variation of the Fine Structure Constant”’
Advisor:  David N. Spergel
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University/Current Position: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Assistant Professor

Juniors 2002-03

Philip F. Hopkins
Fall JP:  “Selection of Metal-Poor Giant and RR Lyrae Stars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data”
Advisor:  Zeljko Ivezic
Spring JP:  “Examination of Reddened Quasars in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data”
Advisor:  Michael A. Strauss

Madhuri Kaul
Fall JP:  “SDSS Proper Motion Survey”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp
Spring JP:  “Comparison of the K+ Background in MiniBooNE as Generated by the GEANT and MARS Monte Carlo Simulations”
Advisor:   Andrew Bazarko (Physics), Neta A. Bahcall

Joshua D. Younger
Fall JP:  “Mie Scattering in Dusty Disks: Dependence on the Inclination”
Advisor:  Edwin L. Turner
Spring JP:  “A Search for Cool Population II M Subdwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp


Seniors 2001-02

Julia Comerford
Senior Thesis:  “Probability of Gravitational Lensing of High-Redshift Quasars”
Advisor:  Zoltan Haiman
Post Graduate:  Graduate Student, Astrophyics, University of California, Berkeley

Ernie Tretkoff (Physics)
Senior Thesis:   “Halo Clustering in Warm Dark Matter Models”
Advisor:   Neta A. Bahcall, Paul Bode
Post Graduate:   Graduate School, University of California, Santa Cruz (Science Writing)

Juniors 2001-02

Cullen Blake
Fall JP:  “The Princeton Variability Survey”
Advisor:   Bohdan Paczynski
Spring JP:  “Difference Image Analysis of EXPLORE I Data”
Advisor:  Gabriela Mallen-Ornelas

Joshua Schroeder
Fall JP:  “Spectal Features of Carbon Stars Found in SDSS”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp
Spring JP:  “Milky Way Absorption Features in Ultraviolet Spectra of Quasars 3C273 and RX “Milky Way Absorption Features in Ultraviolet Spectra of Quasars 3C273 and RX"
Advisor:  Edward B. Jenkins

Charles L. Steinhardt
Fall JP:  “Search for Type Ia Supernovae at Large Redshifts with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:  David N. Spergel
Spring JP:  “Variation of the Fine Structure Constant”
Advisor:  John N. Bahcall

Daniel Grin (Physics)
Fall JP:  “Finding Lyman Limit Systems in the Spectra of High Redshift SDSS QSOs”
Advisor:  Michael A. Strauss
Spring JP:
Advisor: 


Seniors 2000-01

Deborah L. Freedman
Senior Thesis:  “A Life Preserver for a Black Hole and Other Applications of “Q = M” Material”
Advisor:  J. Richard Gott, III
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Harvard University

Adam L. Gittes
Senior Thesis:  “Violence in the Night Sky: A New Measure for Variable Star Classification”
Advisor:  Neil deGrasse Tyson
Post Graduate:  Wall Street

Edwin J. Knerr
Senior Thesis:  “Estimating the Mass of the Milky Way Galaxy”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp
Post Graduate:  Law School

Joseph J. MacAvoy
Senior Thesis:  “Reusable and Expendable Launch Vehicles and the High Cost of Access to Space”
Advisor:  Robert Stengel (Engineering), Jerry Grey (MAE), Neta A. Bahcall
Post Graduate:  Policy/Law School (William and Mary Law School)

Tind S. Ryen
Senior Thesis:  “E + A Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:  Michael A. Strauss
Post Graduate:  Science Policy Program

Brooke D. Simmons
Senior Thesis:  “An Atmosphere Detector for the Princeton I,Q,U Experiment”
Advisor:  Suzanne Staggs (Physics), James E. Gunn
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Yale University

Juniors 2000-01

Julia Comerford
Fall JP:  “Circular and Elliptical Orbit Estimations of a Fourth Planet Around Pulsar PSR-B1257+2”
Advisor:  Bradley Hansen
Spring JP:  “The Dependence of Mass-to-Light Ratio on Cluster Overdensity”
Advisor:  Neta A. Bahcall

Kimberly Palladino (Physics)
Fall JP:  “The Observed Mass-Temperature Relation in High Density Systems”
Advisor:  Neta A. Bahcall
Spring JP:
Advisor: 


Seniors 1999-2000

Richard S. De Simone
Senior Thesis:  “The Stellar Velocity Distribution in the Solar Neighborhood”
Advisor:  Scott D. Tremaine
Post Graduate:  Tower Research Capitals

Alex C. McDaniel
Senior Thesis:  “L and T Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”
Advisor:   Gillian R. Knapp
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Joshua A. Pepper
Senior Thesis:  “A Search for Active Nuclei and an Investigation of Galactic Color Profiles in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Galaxy Images”
Advisor:  Michael A. Strauss
Post Graduate:  Graduate School, Astrophysics, Ohio State University

Alana L. Sette
Senior Thesis:  “The Cosmic Background Radiation: A Visual Introduction”
Advisor:  David N. Spergel
Post Graduate:  Science/Engineering Company

Kristian Finlator (Physics)
Senior Thesis:  “Modeling the Near-Infrared Colors of Stars and Quasars”
Advisor:   Michael A. Strauss
Post Graduate:

Juniors 1999-2000

Deborah L. Freedman
Fall JP:  “Determining Properties of Gamma-Ray Bursts”
Advisor:  Neta Bahcall, Eli Waxman
Spring JP:  “Constraining Ω and σ8: A Concordance of Observations”
Advisor:  Neta A. Bahcall

Adam L. Gittes
Fall JP:  “Non-Isotropic Kick Velocities of Neutron Stars in Binary Systems”
Advisor:  Bradley Hansen
Spring JP:  “Weighing the Universe With the Sunyaev Zel'dovich Effect”
Advisor:  Neta A. Bahcall

Edwin J. Knerr
Fall JP:  “Microlensing in a Binary System”
Advisor:   Bohdan Paczynski
Spring JP:  “Error Analysis of the Lightcurves for QSO's 0957+561 and 2237+305”
Advisor:  Edwin Turner

Joseph J. MacAvoy
Fall JP:  “The Relation Between Velocity Dispersion and X-Ray Temperature in a Sample of Abell Galaxy Clusters”
Advisor:  Michael J. Way
Spring JP:  “Spectral Types and Variability of Stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue”
Advisor:  Gillian R. Knapp

Tind S. Ryen
Fall JP:  “Survey of Ultraviolet Interstellar Absorption Spectra”
Advisor:  Edward B. Jenkins, Todd Tripp
Spring JP:  “Discussion of Atmospheric Modeling of Mars”
Advisor:  Tullis Onstott (Geosciences), Scott D. Tremaine

Brooke D. Simmons
Fall JP:  “Galactic Extinction Estimates For Comparison to the Schlegel-Finkbeiner-Davis Maps”
Advisor:  David N. Spergel
Spring JP:  “Galactic Extinction of Stars, Galaxies, and Quasars:  Searching for Gray Dust”
Advisor:  Michael A. Strauss

Chris McLeavey (Physics)
Fall JP:  “SZ Effect and MAP Physics”
Advisor:  David N. Spergel
Spring JP:
Advisor: