NASA-PEER Cohort

Emmie Aufderheide is affiliated with the Planetary Systems Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Emmie works with Conor Nixon to study the photochemistry of Titan’s atmosphere. Their goal is to create a refined list of the most critical reaction rates and branching ratios using a Titan photochemical model.

Dex Bhadra is affiliated with the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dex is working with Dr. Sean Terry on designing a microlensing survey for the Roman Space Telescope. He is creating an automated image-constrained microlensing pipeline that can use future Roman image observations to break microlensing degeneracies.

Matthew Buchan is affiliated with the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Matthew is working with Dr. Al Kogut on the PRIMA far-infrared probe Phase A study. His research focuses on the optical performance and optomechanical design of the FIRESS Fourier transform module.

Ethan Harvey

Ethan Harvey is affiliated with the X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Ethan is working with Dr. Antara Basu-Zych on forming a large catalog of extremely metal-poor galaxies. His research focuses on collating the X-ray detection data of said galaxies to lower the knowledge constraints of high energy emissions during early cosmic epochs such as reionization.

Sangeeta Kumar

Sangeeta Kumar is affiliated with the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under the mentorship of Drs. Sangeeta Malhotra and James Rhoads. Sangeeta is working on simulating Lyman Alpha galaxy spectra using the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in order to understand the Cosmic Dawn. This work is pertinent to understanding what Roman can see and what astronomers can expect from the soon to be launched telescope. 

Kyla Mullaney

Kyla Mullaney is affiliated with the X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centerworking with Dr. Kim Weaver and Dr. Kelly Whalen. She researches the kinematic impacts of Active Galactic Nuclei and star formation on galaxy evolution, using spatially-resolved IFU spectroscopy and X-ray observations.

Matias Calderon is affiliated with the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Matias is working as a research assistant under Dr. Karwan Rostem to develop a virtual image phase array (VIPA) spectrometer instrument for the far-infrared range. Matias supports Dr. Rostem’s work through computer aided design (CAD) to design instrument components and by developing instrument and test software.

Rachel Hemmer

Rachel Hemmer is affiliated with the X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Rachel performed theoretical and computational work in support of the upcoming X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). She is now studying metallicity evolution of galaxy clusters.

Fiona McDaniel

Fiona McDaniel is affiliated with the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Fiona McDaniel is affiliated with the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Under Dr. Alexander Kutyrev, Fiona uses deep learning techniques to identify gamma ray bursts in PRIME telescope photometry data.

Paul Wampler

Paul Wampler is affiliated with the X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Paul is working with Dr. Francesca Civano to study the variable emission of obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and constrain their geometry. To this end, he is reducing hard X-ray NuSTAR data and performing spectral analysis using obscured AGN models such as MyTorus.