News
August 4, 2024:
UNC Asheville Astronomy minors and Lookout Observatory docents Will Kinley and Meghan Sedberry were selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2023-2024 Academic Year.
In addition to the financial award of $1500 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, they will each receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
Congratulations, Will and Meghan!
July 19, 2024:
UNC Asheville Physics Major and Astronomy Minor Will Kinley was awarded an $8,000 North Carolina Space Grant Undergraduate Research Scholarship, making him one of only 15 undergraduate awardees selected statewide. The funding will support his undergraduate research with faculty in UNC Asheville’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Kinley is working with Prof. Christene Lynch on a project exploring strategies to detect non-solar coronal mass ejections via stellar models.
Congratulations Will!
August 15, 2023:
Prof. David Wake has received a grant to use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study distant galaxies. As the grant’s primary investigator for the U.S. team, Wake is leading the way in the single largest project to ever take place using JWST, through a process called pure parallel observation. As the project progresses, UNC Asheville students will have the opportunity to become involved, as well, giving them the chance to use exciting new data in their research. Read more about the project here.
July 22, 2023:
UNC Asheville Astronomy minors and Lookout Observatory docents Phoebe Gittis and Aaron Speyer were selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2022-2023 Academic Year.
In addition to the financial award of $1500 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, they will each receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
Congratulations, Phoebe and Aaron!
June 1, 2023:
UNC Asheville Astronomy minors Abby Grulick and Riley McBride were each awarded $8,000 North Carolina Space Grant Undergraduate Research Scholarships, making them two of only a dozen undergraduate awardees selected statewide. The funding will support their undergraduate research with faculty in UNC Asheville’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Grulick is working with Prof. Christene Lynch to identify extrasolar planetary systems that have a high likelihood of sustaining liquid water on the surface of the exoplanet. To do this, she is modeling a theoretical set of exoplanets and slowly adjust their atmospheres and star-magnet interactions over time to determine optimal conditions for maintaining liquid water.
McBride is undertaking research with Prof. David Wake. He is using data from more than 10,000 galaxies from the SDSS I/II and SDSS IV MaNGA surveys to look for a correlation between the orbital motion of satellite galaxies and the rotation the central galaxy that they are orbiting. Such a correlation could indicate that the angular momentum of the dark matter halo hosting these galaxies is being transferred to the central galaxy.
Read more about this research in the UNCA press release here.
Congratulations Abby and Riley!
January 5, 2023:
Prof. Britt Lundgren has received a $50,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation to support her selection as an LSSTC Catalyst Fellowship Expansion Mentor to Dr. Somayeh Khakpash (Rutgers University). The grant support can be used for summer salary, collaboration visits to an LSSTC member institution, stipends for UNCA students to work on projects related to Rubin LSST, and travel.
December 1, 2022:
Prof. David Wake has received a $36,935 grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute for a general observing program using the Hubble Space Telescope in Cycle 30. The grant supports science from the program, entitled “Probing the Gas in and around Local Galaxies Mapped with Integral Field Spectroscopy“, in collaboration with the program PI: Prof. Varsha Kulkarni of the University of South Carolina.
November 13, 2022:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy students Jordan Tinder and Abdullah Sayed have been announced as the 2020-2021 recipients of the Brian Dennison Award for Undergraduate Research. This award, made possible through a generous grant to the Department of Physics and Astronomy, recognizes superior achievement in undergraduate research and includes a stipend of $1500 and access to $500 dollars for research expenses.
Jordan has been working with Prof. David Wake on a project using Hubble Space Telescope data to study trends between star formation and the dust content in distant galaxies, when the universe was approximately half its current age. Abdullah has been working with Profs. Lundgren and Wake to measure the baryon acoustic oscillation scale (a “standard ruler” that can be used to measure the expansion history of the universe), using the distribution of metal-enriched gas detected in the spectra of distant quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Congratulations, Jordan and Abdullah!
September 26, 2022:
Prof. Britt Lundgren has been appointed by the Director of Astronomy at the National Science Foundation to a three year term on the 12-member Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC). This committee convenes semi-annually to advise the NSF, NASA, the Department of Energy, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on issues related to the federal research portfolio in astronomy and astrophysics.
May 1, 2022:
UNCA Astronomy minors and Lookout Observatory docents Alex Parker and Ava Tomkins were selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2021-2022 Academic Year.
In addition to the financial award of $1500 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, they will each receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
Congratulations, Alex and Ava!
June 1, 2021:
Prof. David Wake received two grants from the Space Telescope Science Institute to support general observing programs using the Hubble Space Telescope in Cycle 28. The first grant, for $282,163, supports science from the large observing program entitled “3D-DASH: A Wide Field WFC3/IR Survey of COSMOS”. The second, for $23,886, supports research with the medium observing program entitled “The Baryonic Content of Galaxies Mapped by MaNGA and Gas Flows Around Them”, in collaboration with the study’s PI: Prof. Varsha Kulkarni of the University of South Carolina.
May 1, 2021:
Prof. Britt Lundgren was awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Grant of $93,082 to support a collaborative project with colleagues Prof. Christy Tremonti (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Prof. Aleks Diamond-Stanic (Bates College) entitled: “Collaborative Research with Undergraduate Institutions: Absorption and Emission Line Probes of Galactic Winds with eBOSS”. The project will use the vast dataset of galaxy and quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s eBOSS Survey to explore how large-scale winds from galaxies help to regulate star formation and galaxy evolution.
February 1, 2021:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy students Jacob Crawford, Anna Josey, and Simren Patel have been selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2020-2021 Academic Year.
In addition to a financial award of $1000 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, each of the awardees will receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
Congratulations, Jacob, Anna, and Simren!
October 28, 2020:
We are excited to share that Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Project Development Scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, will be joining us later this month to present a Special Science Policy Lecture entitled:
“Moving Science from a ‘Nice-to-Have’ to a ‘Must-Have’ in U.S. Foreign Policy: Stories from a Physicist on the Front Lines of Transatlantic Security Policy”
The Zoom webinar will begin at 7:00pm Eastern Time on Wednesday October 28, 2020.
RSVP here to receive connection details: https://linktr.ee/UNCASPS
See full advertisement here.
May 7, 2020:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Samantha Creech has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Manly E. Wright Award, a recognition given to the student first in scholarship in each year’s graduating class.
In addition to her stellar academic accomplishments, Samantha has served as the President of UNCA’s Society of Physics Students, office supervisor for UNC Asheville’s Outdoor Programs, and a lead docent for Lookout Observatory. She has also been active in undergraduate research on campus and spent the summer of 2019 conducting research at the University of Wisconsin Madison with the IceCube Project where she worked to improve the neutrino-detecting capabilities of instruments buried deep in the ice at the South Pole. Before taking off for a gap year of backpacking in New Zealand and ultimately pursuing a Ph.D. in astronomy, Samantha will spend the summer of 2020 interning as a science writer with Physics Today magazine. Congratulations, Samantha! Ad Astra!
April 20, 2020:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Darren Stroupe has been awarded the Brian Dennison Undergraduate Research Award in Physics and Astronomy for the 2019-2020 Academic Year. The award, which recognizes superior achievement in undergraduate research, includes a stipend of $1500 and access to $1000 dollars for research expenses.
Darren, who is graduating in May 2020, spent the summer of 2019 conducting extragalactic astronomy research as a DAWN/IRES Scholar at the Cosmic Dawn Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is currently working on publishing other research on the gaseous halos of distant galaxies, which he has undertaken at UNC Asheville, and he will be starting a Ph.D. in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Fall. Congratulations on these stellar achievements, Darren!
February 11, 2020:
UNC Asheville Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Britt Lundgren has been named a 2020 Cottrell Scholar, an honor that comes with a $100,000 prize from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) in support of her research on how galaxies evolve over cosmic timescales.
August 21, 2019:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Samantha Creech was selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2019-2020 Academic Year.
In addition to the financial award of $2000 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, Samantha will receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
Congratulations, Samantha!
March 2, 2019:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Darren Stroupe has been accepted to the 2019 DAWN-IRES Scholars Program and will be spending the summer in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Nils Bohr Institute’s Cosmic Dawn Center. Darren will be working with astronomers Dr. Gabriel Brammer, Dr. Nina Bonaventura, and Dr. Kate Whitaker, on a project using the Hubble Space Telescope to detect and analyze high-redshift galaxies, which have been lensed by foreground massive galaxy clusters. Congratulations, Darren!
January 9, 2019:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Makennah Bristow is in the news for exoplanets she helped discover during an internship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center during the summer of 2017. Read all about it below!
Official Press Release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab
Citizen scientists discover rare exoplanet (CNN)
July 20, 2018:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Callie Clontz has been awarded the Brian Dennison Undergraduate Research Award in Physics and Astronomy for the 2018-2019 Academic Year. Callie will receive a stipend of $1500 and $1000 dollars for related expenses to support her research, which is mentored by Dr. David Wake.
Callie is using data from the Hubble Space Telescope taken as part of the 3D-HST survey to measure how the clustering of distant galaxies depends on how rapidly they are forming stars. With these measurements she can study how the rate of star formation in these distant galaxies is related to the properties of the dark matter halos in which the galaxies live. Congratulations, Callie! We look forward to your results!
April 30, 2018:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Corey McAllister was selected to receive the Astronomy Club of Asheville–Carolyn Keefe Scholarship for the 2018-2019 Academic Year.
In addition to the financial award of $2000 to be applied to the costs of attending UNCA, Corey will receive a one-year membership in the Astronomy Club of Asheville. Corey’s research and award have also been featured in this UNCA press release from October 11, 2018.
Congratulations, Corey!
April 23, 2018:
UNCA Physics/Astronomy student Darren Stroupe was recently selected to receive a NC Space Grant Undergraduate Research Scholarship in the amount of $6,000 for Summer 2018 supporting his research project: “Mg II-Absorbing Galaxies in the UltraVISTA Survey.” Congratulations, Darren!
