Several Wesleyan Faculty, Students Participate in Annual American Astronomical Society Meeting

Four Wesleyan faculty, nine undergraduate students, one graduate student, and one postdoctoral researcher attended the 237th American Astronomical Society meeting virtually Jan. 10–15.

Wesleyan faculty attendees included Ed Moran, chair and professor of astronomy; Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy; Meredith Hughes, associate professor of astronomy; and Roy Kilgard, associate professor of the practice in astronomy.

Poster presentations included:
Kimberly Paragas ’21, who is working with Redfield, presented “Metastable Helium Reveals Ongoing Mass Loss for the Gas Giant HAT-P-18b.”

Molly Watstein ’21, who is working with Moran, presented “New Insights into AGN Unification from NuSTAR Observations of Nearby Seyfert 2 Galaxies.”

Hannah Lewis ’23, who is working with Hughes, presented “A Search for Kinematic Signatures of Planets in the Debris Disk Around 49 Ceti.”

Graduate student Megan Delamer, who is working with Hughes, presented “A High-Resolution Study of Spatial and Spectral Variations of Dust Properties in the 49 Ceti Debris Disk.”

Anthony Santini ’18, MA ’19, who is working with Kilgard, presented “An Analysis of X-ray Binary Populations Outside the Visible Extent of Nearby Galaxies.”

Mason Tea ’21, who is working with Kilgard, presented “Circling the Cosmic Drain: Analysis, Characterization and Variability of Local, Accreting X-ray Binaries with Archival Chandra Observations.”

David Vizgan ’21, who is working with Hughes, presented “Tensile Strengths of Bodies in the Collisional Cascade: A Dual-Wavelength Study of the Vertical Structure of the AU Mic Debris Disk.”

Ilaria Carleo, a postdoctoral researcher working with Redfield, presented “TOI-421: A Multiplanet System with a Super-Puffy Mini Neptune.” Carleo’s talk was based on her research cited in AAS Nova.

Ava Nederlander ’22, who is working with Hughes, presented “Resolving Structure in the Debris Disk around HD 206893 with ALMA.”

Seth Larner ’21, who is working with Kilgard, presented “Investigating Transition States in Bright Chandra ACIS X-ray Binaries Exhibiting Intra-Observational Variation.”

Ben Martinez ’21, who is working with Moran, presented “An Unbiased Survey of Black Hole Activity in the Local Universe.”

Anna Fehr ’23, who is working with Hughes, presented “Planet Configurations Carving Gapped Debris Disks.”

Also, Emma Goulet from St. Anselm College, presented “Fitting the Local Interstellar Medium Toward EK Draconis.” Goulet worked under Redfield during the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium’s  Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program.