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| Quadruple papers on a binary star |
2015 November 13 — After a multi-year collaboration, I am excited to announce that four papers resulting from the international delta Ori observing campaign have recently been published in the Astrophysical Journal! NASA put out a very nice press release describing these results; find more details on my massive star research page. Former DU Ph.D. student Jamie Lomax and I joined this collaboration as an offshoot of her work with GSFC X-ray astronomy Michael Corcoran. Although we contributed spectropolarimetric observations of δ Ori, they are not discussed in the newly published articles; we plan to obtain more data and continue the investigations begun by this team. It has been an honor to collaborate with this brilliant and collegial group of international scientists, and we look forward to future successes!
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| Peregrinations |
2015 June 27 — I've had a busy travel schedule in the past few months! In April I was invited to spend a week at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire, England to attend the Kavli Scientist-Writer Workshop. It was a lovely venue and a fascinating topic; I met new friends from various scientific disciplines around the world, learned tips of the trade from professional science writers, and honed my communication skills.
In June I presented talks at both the International Workshop on Wolf-Rayet Stars in Potsdam, Germany and the Physics of Evolved Stars conference in Nice, France. Both were very productive for meeting collaborators old and new, as well as visiting some beautiful corners of Europe. My Ph.D. advisee Manisha Shrestha presented a poster on her work in Nice as well.
Later in June I also attended the first-ever Inclusive Astronomy meeting in Nashville, TN. This workshop was a powerful gathering of astronomers across the spectra of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability status, etc. to discuss how the field can be made more equitable and supportive of all its practitioners. I did not present, but learned a great deal that I'm still contemplating and puttinng into practice in my own career and interactions. The APS reported on the conference in a news article here. I was proud to be a part of it and to contribute to the recommendations that will grow out of the discussions begun there.
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| Desert dreaming |
2015 March 28 — For Part II of my two-quarter sabbatical, I spent a month in Tucson working with collaborators at the University of Arizona. I'm a member of the SNSPOL collaboration, which uses UA's SPOL spectropolarimeter to study the geometrical evolution of bright supernovae. I spent most of the time working on a forthcoming article describing the complex circumstellar structures surrounding SN 2010jl. My graduate advisee Leah Huk joined me for part of the visit, and we both gave talks at the informal "Big Boom" group meeting. I also enjoyed a lovely early desert spring, making sure to spend time at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Tucson Botanical Gardens and joining a group hike to Romero Pools. It was the perfect way to escape from late winter snow and spend some quality research time with colleagues.
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