CUNY Astro Excited For New Master’s Program in Astrophysics!

Under the direction of Prof. Jillian Bellovary, CUNY has instituted a new Master’s Program in Astrophysics which will begin taking students in Fall 2022. Applications are open! The goal of the program is to offer students of all backgrounds an exciting route to doctoral study in astronomy and physics and to STEM careers. Accepted students will be fully funded and will conduct research with CUNYAstro Faculty as well as researchers at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics. Aside from coursework in physics and astronomy, the program includes professional development in writing, presenting, teamwork, and networking prepare students for doctoral work and for STEM jobs.

CUNY Astro Congratulates Dr. Rocio Kiman

Dr. Kiman successfully defended her PhD thesis in July 2021 and has accepted a position (joint) UC Santa Barbara Kavli / CalTech postdoctoral fellowship! You can find out all about Dr. Kiman from her webpage where she introduces her expertise and interest:

I study M dwarf ages. In particular I’m interested in the following age indicators: magnetic activity, dynamics and rotation period, and the correlation between all of them to create a detailed description of M dwarf evolution. Moreover I’m interested in statistical analysis and open source code development.

We wish Dr. Kiman all the best and know that she is destined for greatness!

CUNYAstro Congratulates Newest PhD, Dr. Eileen Gonzalez

The newly minted Dr. Eileen Gonzales just finished her PhD defense from the CUNY Graduate Center at the end of July. Her thesis work combines both observational and theoretical based approaches to understand the atmospheres and fundamental parameters of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, with a focus on low-metallicity sources. In September she will be starting as a 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University. Her postdoctoral work will focus on atmospheric retrievals of low-gravity brown dwarfs and directly-imaged exoplanets using the retrieval code Brewster.

Open Letter Requests CUNY Physics PhD Stop Considering GRE.

Members of the CUNYAstro Faculty have signed an open letter to the director of the CUNY Graduate Center Physics PhD program requesting that the GRE be made optional.

CUNY associates and affiliates who agree with the open letter are encouraged to indicate your agreement by signing here.

AstroCom NYC alumna awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Theresa Panurach (Hunter ’18) received an NSF GFRP  to create the first comprehensive multiwavelength survey for black hole X-ray binaries in Galactic globular clusters to investigate the extent of their population in these systems. Theresa is in the PhD program in Astronomy & Astrophysics at MSU. Congrats!!

CUNY Astro alumna hits the tenure-track

Dr. Vivienne Baldassare (Hunter) will be starting as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Washington State University in Fall 2020. Vivienne received her PhD from Michigan and is currently an Einstein Fellow at Yale. She is our first alum to enter the professoriate – we are super proud!

AstroCom NYC alumna tells her story

Victoria DiTomasso (Hunter ’18) wrote a commentary on her unique career path in astronomy that got published in Physics Today. Victoria is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Potsdam, Germany, and will begin in the astronomy PhD program at Harvard in Fall 19.

CUNY Hunter alumna honored by National Geographic

Munazza Alam, recent CUNY Hunter physics graduate, former REU at AMNH, and member of BDNYC, is a National Geographic grantee. Munazza is currently a graduate student in the astronomy PhD program at Harvard. See the beautiful article in Nat Geo – congratulations!!

CUNY Astro’s newest PhD graduate – April 2017

CUNY Astro’s proud to announce the successful defense of Dr. Paige
A. Godfrey (The Graduate Center, College of Staten Island). She was the first CUNY
Astro grad student to receive a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the
CUNY GC, and the first to receive a Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize from the AAS.

CUNY faculty recognized for research – April 2017

Prof. Viviana Acquaviva (CUNY City Tech) received the Feliks Gross
Award, the highest CUNY award for assistant professors, based on her
research excellence.

AstroCom NYC student publication in High Energy Journal – April 2017

AstroCom NYC undergraduate scholars Roberto Moncada, Rafael Colon,
and Juan Guerra, recently had a peer-reviewed article accepted by the
Journal of High Energy Physics. Profs. Luis Anchordoqui and Matt
O’Dowd (CUNY Lehman) were co-authors.

CUNY Astro’s newest PhD graduate – May 2016

CUNY Astro’s most recent Ph.D. graduate is Dr. Joe Filippazzo (The
Graduate Center, College of Staten Island). A large part of this
thesis research on measuring the fundamental parameters of M, L, T,
and Y dwarfs was published in an article
appearing in the Astrophysical Journal. His committee consisted of
her advisor, Emily Rice (CUNY CSI), and Kelle Cruz (CUNY Hunter
College), Jackie Faherty (Carnegie), Charles Liu (CUNY CSI), and
Michael Cushing (University of Toledo). Joe is now at Research and
Instrument Analyst at the Space
Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

CUNY Astro Graduate students won AAS International Travel Awards – January 2016

Paige Giorla (Grad Center) and Joe Filippazzo (Grad Center) won AAS International Travel Awards to attend the Cool Stars 19 conference this summer in Sweden.

CUNY Astro student awarded Chambliss prize – January 2016

Ellie Schwab (CCNY, AstroCom) won a Chambliss Award for her poster presentation about young brown dwarfs at the American Astronomical Society meeting this January. The poster is coauthored by fellow AstroCom student Victoria DiTomasso (Hunter) and their advisors, Adric Riedel (Caltech), Emily Rice (College of Staten Island), Kelle Cruz (Hunter), and Jackie Faherty (Carnegie).

CUNY Astro women attended CUWiP- January 2016

CUNY Astro students participated in the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Wesleyan University. Betsy Hernandez (Hunter) won an Outstanding Poster Prize. The poster was coauthored by her research advisors Ari Maller (CityTech), Barry McKernan (BMCC), and Saavik Ford (BMCC).

CUNY Astro participated in AAS 227 – January 2016

CUNY Astro students were out in force at this year’s winter meeting of the Americal Astronomical Society. Notably, eight CUNY undergraduates and two grad students gave poster presentations and Joe Filippazzo gave his dissertation talk. CUNY was also particularly well represented at the Hack/Maker Day.