Meet the DAWN-IRES Scholars: Laurel Weiss

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

My name is Laurel Weiss and I’m a student at Penn State and grew up in New Jersey. I’m an astrophysics & astronomy major going into my Junior year. I really like being outside, taking walks without a destination in mind. I also really like interior design. If I had unlimited money, I could go wild here with the Danish style. I like decorating spaces and I’ve even been commissioned by friends to set up and decorate their dorms. I enjoy fly fishing, Penn State also a program but this is also something I used to do with my dad a lot.

How did you get interested in astronomy?

I think every kid is at least a little interested in space because it is so cool. For the longest time I wanted to be an interior designer and architect. But I fell in love with my physics classes in high school, which led me to wanting more. Astronomy combined what I enjoyed working on and learning about with the romanticized sci-fi topic of space. I really love making plots and thinking about how to do things better.

What is your favorite part about Copenhagen? Dawn?

I’ve enjoyed exploring the city, both on foot and by bike, finding new cool spots, cafes, and streets. It is such a big city that you never run out of discovering new spaces. I like the laid back, open, and collaborative atmosphere at the Cosmic Dawn Center. It has a very relaxed feeling but at the same time everyone is doing really cool stuff. Oh, and they have really cool windows here too.

What motivated you to apply to an international REU?

I never thought that I would do an REU. I really wanted to study abroad, but I couldn’t justify picking up and leaving the people and work at home because I enjoyed it so much. This was a really awesome combination of both worlds, where I could continue to do research but also go abroad and see new places. This is pretty surreal to me, you never think you’d be that person in your twenties to live in Europe, but here I am.

Can you tell me about your summer research project?

I’m working Dr. Thomas Greve and we are looking the environments of high-redshift radio galaxies. We are seeing if the over-densities of 850 micron selected sub-millimeter sources changes with redshift. These galaxies are typically very massive, so we might find higher over-densities later in the universe.

What skills and knowledge would you like to acquire this summer?

I think what I am learning a lot more about this summer is how to do a project independently, in that my mentor will give me a list of things to do and set me free. I figure out how to do it, accidentally break things, and then fix them again. It is rewarding in a way because a lot of it is on me, but it is also terrifying because it is on me. But just learning how to handle this and be successful is what I’m most looking forward to mastering.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?

I would love to be able to control the weather and the elements. There is nothing more devastating than being so excited to go outside and do an activity and then you look out the window and it is down pouring or it is bitter cold. But if I could control it…

Meet the DAWN-IRES Scholars: Katie Chapman

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

My name is Katie Chapman and I just completed my senior year at Colgate, earning a degree in Astronomy-Physics with an honors thesis on simulating the gravitational production of super heavy dark matter particles during inflation. I live in New Jersey now, but grew up in Connecticut. Outside of astronomy, I like running and ice skating and science & math youtube videos. I don’t make the youtube videos, I wish I did, but I find it inspiring to get ideas for how to communicate my own research. It also introduces new topics and ideas to expand my knowledge of abstract math concepts. Also, I’ve been getting into archery and chess while I’ve been here, learning from the other interns.

How did you get interested in astronomy?

My interest in astronomy started at the boarding high school I went to in Massachusetts. I took a basic intro astronomy class there. Seeing how enthusiastic I was, my teacher, Caroline Odden, suggested that I take an astronomy research class with her the following semester. She goes to the AAS every year and was able to pair each of us with a professional astronomer to conduct an individual research project. I had two projects, one was rediscovering exoplanets in Kepler data and the second was to search for strong gravitational lens candidates in dark energy surveys. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else once I had a taste of astronomy research.

What is your favorite part about Copenhagen? About DAWN?

I love the rich history with regards to physics in Copenhagen. I got to see Niels Bohr’s office and the room where Hafnium was discovered. Hafnia is the Latin name for Copenhagen, where the element was discovered. I actually just learned today that the direct english translation for Copenhagen is Chapman’s Haven, so, I belong here! Physics aside, I would definitely rate Copenhagen as “Lawful Good”: the transportation system always works on time and you follow the traffic rules religiously, the system works because people follow the rules. For me, DAWN is the ideal place to work and I love the community. I’ve always been in a smaller community, so it is cool to take part in the dynamic of an entire astronomy center and get to know people and be exposed to new topics. It is so easy to bounce ideas off people at a human level about anything, not just astronomy.

What motivated you to apply to an international REU?

I’m considering going to graduate school abroad and I was interested in the cosmology aspects of the center, so the program was a good fit for me. Also astronomy is a very international community, so being immersed in a new environment and seeing how they think will ultimately make me a better astronomer. I also really vibe with the European approach to work-live balance.

Can you tell me about your summer research project?

I am working with Dr. Daniel Ceverino, making use of the FirstLight simulation of high redshift galaxies. The motivation for my project is to make theoretical predictions for the formation of the first galaxies to inform future observations at cosmic dawn. In particular, I’m trying to elucidate the physical origin of starbursts by looking at merger rates and mass accretion histories.

What skills and knowledge would you like to acquire this summer?

I’ve already seen my python abilities improve exponentially, so I hope to continue to improve that even more. I’d also like to learn how to better communicate to the public about my research. I really enjoy listening to what kinds of questions people ask and what kind of connections they make with the talks that occur frequently here.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?

I’m really tempted to say teleportation or the ability to speak all languages. But, instead, I definitely would choose to have the power to immediately fully comprehend any paper I read. That would really help my career moving forward!

Meet the DAWN-IRES Scholars: Darren Stroupe

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

My name is Darren Stroupe and I am a post-baccalaureate at UNC Asheville, majoring in Physics and minoring in Astronomy & Mathematics. I’ve been studying under Prof. Britt Lundgren for about 2 1/2 years now, researching Magnesium II absorbers in quasar spectra in the UltraVISTA extragalactic field. I grew up in Michigan, but I moved to North Carolina in 1996. I went to UNC Asheville and received my first bachelors in Music Technology. In my spare time I like to play drums, piano and guitar, but mainly drums. I’ve worked in the past recording other bands, before getting into astronomy.

How did you get interested in astronomy?

Being a little bit older, my generation grew up with the space shuttles, which were really exciting and at times tragic. After having been a recording engineer for several years, a series of events occurred including receiving my first Newtonian telescope. Seeing things like globular clusters and other celestial objects really opened my eyes to the vastness of space. I had a Joseph Silk book The Big Bang for many years which I happened to pick back up. That reignited my interest in space and astronomy. One of the reasons I went back to school was to understand a lot of the math in that book. Prof. Silk actually just came to DAWN a few weeks ago to give a talk, which was pretty amazing.

What is your favorite part about Copenhagen? About DAWN?

The city has been here for so long and when you walk around the old part of the inner city you can’t help but feel this reverence for the permanency of the place and appreciate the architecture. The collective knowledge about astronomy and the early universe here at DAWN is awesome. To actually be able to work with people who are literally on the forefront of their field is humbling. I’m impressed with the sharpness of my cohort. It is good to see so many people interested in science and it gives me hope that physics and astronomy are in good hands for the future.

What motivated you to apply to an international REU?

Since research is one of my end goals, I wanted to engage with a high caliper research center. So this was a Hail Mary, but I feel really privileged to have been invited to the Cosmic Dawn Center. I’m here to do research and gain skills, but I’m learning about so many other things beyond the science along the way, including statistics, coding techniques, and software development. If this experience were in Asheville or any other place, I would have been just as excited. But the fact that it is in Copenhagen is amazing. Being in a different place can lead to thinking about things differently. I think that having an international research experience can lead to a fuller experience overall.

Can you tell me about your summer research project?

I’m working with Dr. Gabe Brammer on Hubble Space Telescope grism spectroscopy. We are developing a fast and reliable machine learning classification model to estimate the distances to galaxies that will allow us to analyze much broader samples coming through the pipeline soon.

What skills and knowledge would you like to acquire this summer?

I would like to become a better researcher and improve in all of the skills that are required to succeed, such as coding, communicating, statistical analyses, and presentation skills. I am open to learning about new astrophysics, wherever the research may lead us.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?

First of all, I would say that human limitations lead us to really strive to go beyond ourselves, which I think is inspiring. But if I could shed myself of one of those limitations, I would be able to time travel to go back in time and witness the many Earth-shaking discoveries, like Galileo seeing the moons of Jupiter and Hubble discovering cepheid variables.