Meet the DAWN-IRES Scholars: Eric Rumsfeld

Tell me a little about yourself.

I am originally from Denver, Colorado and I go to school at Wesleyan, which is a small liberal arts college in Connecticut. While in college my parents moved to San Francisco. I'm enjoying exploring San Francisco, but Denver is definitely still home. I have three dogs: Scarlett is a yellow lab and she's 13, Olivia is a corgi and she's 6, and Sadie is a spaniel who is 2. I really like listening to music and creating playlists. I like most music except for country and metal. I really like basketball — I like the NBA and the Nuggets. I also like to play basketball for fun, e.g., intramural and pickup games.

How did you get interested in astronomy?

I primarily got into astronomy after my freshman year. My first class I took at Wesleyan with Meredith Hughes and I thought she was the best teacher ever. She really inspired me with her enthusiasm for astronomy; her ways of thinking about astronomy inspired me to have my own interests in astronomy. I haven't always been into astronomy though. As a child, I didn't look through a telescope. That didn’t happen until college, so I guess I'm kind of a late bloomer.

What is your favorite part about Copenhagen?  DAWN?

I like the light. It's light outside all of the time. That's the starkest difference compared to where I'm from. I assume there is a balance to that in the winter. Within the city every day there is such a nice vibe. The other day we played basketball until 10pm because we didn't notice it was so late (the light!).

I really like how the DAWN team is built. It feels like a home grown community that came from simple beginnings, but that a lot of people here have bought into it. Everyone seems really interested in the common science goal of understanding the first galaxies.

What motivated you to apply to an international REU?

I always wanted to study abroad because I really love traveling and also I have an older brother who did 2 semesters abroad and had a great time. That inspired me. But I found that during the semesters it's not as easy and I like being around my friends. So when I found a summer opportunity of doing research abroad, it became my top choice.

Can you tell me about your summer research project?  

This summer I am working with Francesca Rizzo on seeing the effectiveness of [CII] as a potential tracer for molecular gas in high redshift galaxies. We are playing around with that idea in a couple of different scenarios. We are also exploring [CII]'s roles in galaxies in general (e.g., atomic gas and other emission line tracers).

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

The number one skill it would be really beneficial to get is to be better at python. I have a good amount of practical intro because my courses at school have had that as an emphasis. But more practice would be great. I'm also realizing that the professional development side of things is important. Being able to interact with other scientists is vital.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?

The ability to stop time for 30 minutes at a time. You shouldn't be able to stop it forever, that would be too weird for your psychological state. I'm always trying to do so much so that would take away a lot of stress.

Meet the DAWN-IRES Scholars: Hanga Andras-Letanovszky

Tell me a little about yourself.

I am a rising sophomore at the University of Arizona. I major in Physics, Astro, and Math, with minors in Planetary Science, French, and German. I like to draw. I like to draw a lot of stuff, like dumb faces. I've taken some courses but mostly just enjoy doodling. I really like music, especially metal. I feel like metal really pumps me up and gets me really energized. It helps inspiring me when I'm drawing. I also do (sabre) fencing (as opposed epeé or foil) and have been for a few years. I really want a cat but haven't had the chance to get one yet. I would maybe name it after a constellations.

How did you get interested in astronomy?

I have always had some amount of interest in space for most of my life. I remember my parents used to take me to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff when I was little. They have events where they open up some of the smaller telescopes for public viewing. They'd show us Saturn and Jupiter and some closer planetary nebulae. They also had a cool visual representation of the separation of planets in the solar system, which was cool to get a physical sense of distance in the universe. My dad especially would talk to me about black holes etc. He does applied math and is very interested in science. My mom is as well. I started considering it as a career in high school when i took a physics class and realized astronomy is just physics. Having a really cool teacher and a small class size was great. I got a lot out of my high school physics class because we could go at our own pace and the professor could really tailor it to what we were interested in. The low stress really helped me learn and be interested. Also, a senior in my high school I got an internship with ASU working with HST images and that gave me an idea of what working in astro is actually like. I really liked it so that's why I ended up doing it. Also the names of the constellations and stars are cool.

What is your favorite part about Copenhagen?  DAWN?

It's really hard to say. I really love Copenhagen as a city, as a whole. It's not as hot as Arizona. I like how walkable/bikable it is, compared to any city in the US. It's a really nice breath of fresh air. The tourist attractions are fun-- Tivoli, Glypoteket, Natural History Museum, a Canal Tour, ate street food at Reffen, good dinners. I had an interesting experience eating dinner at Høst. There were a lot of surprise courses and it was a really fun experience-- very... interesting... food. Not what I expected. I'm looking forward to exploring more, going to the Copenhagen Zoo, renting a boat, visiting a planetarium next to Steelhouse, and more art museums.

About DAWN, I really like how much of a community feel there is here. People seem to work together a lot and I don't feel bad for asking "dumb" questions. I feel like there's always someone around to help me. I really like being able to talk to everyone about their research, and people are really friendly and I always learn something.

What motivated you to apply to an international REU?

A large part of it was that I've been thinking a lot about going to graduate school in Europe and I thought that doing an internship abroad would give me a good idea. Copenhagen was also appealing, it seemed like a cool city (and it is!). And the research topics at DAWN seemed super cool (and they are!).

Can you tell me about your summer research project?  

I am working on making code that will help us automate the process of looking through archival MOSFIRE data to find essentially random galaxies that were picked up by accident, because they were nearby the target galaxies of the observation. We're hoping to find some really cool galaxies and catalog all of the archival data.

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

It's always nice to get better at python and astronomy. I'm also hoping to get a better understanding of what this sort of work environment is like. Also how to more effectively communicate with people in academia. I'm learning a lot about the high redshift galaxy field, too, which I didn't know much about before.

If you could have any superpower what would it be?

Teleportation, but not just the ability to teleport myself but also objects. It would let me travel a lot, maybe go to space, never be late, and teleport things back to me that I've lost.