Annual Donors Travel Award Funds Eight Students
Saverio Cambioni
Saverio spent 3 months at the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azure in Nice, France, where he investigated a new method, based on neural networks, for identifying the oldest collisional families of asteroids that formed in the earliest phases of our solar system and that have so far not been identified using classical methods.
Claire Cook
Claire traveled to Redwood City, California, to attend a two-day training session for COMSOL geophysical modeling software, a program she will use for her research. COMSOL is multipurpose but so complex that it requires in-person training; and, given that other students and faculty are interested in using the software for their own research groups, Claire's training experience will benefit others as well.
Cassandra Lejoly
In August, Cassandra attended the Mike A'Hearn Symposium at the University of Maryland, where presented results of dust radial profiles of 41P/TKG, 45P/HMP, and 46P/Wirtanen.
Kiana McFadden
Kiana traveled to Houston this October to attend the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) meeting, where she received an award for best student oral presentation of her paper titled, “Sedimentology, Petrography, and Mineralogy of the Tallahatta Formation near the City of Meridian, Mississippi.” The presentation was based on work she completed as an undergraduate at Jackson State University.
Benjamin Sharkey
Ben was able to attend the 2019 joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences meeting (Sept. 15-19) held in Geneva, Switzerland; he presented his work on asteroids orbiting near Jupiter.
Maria Steinrueck
Maria presented her work on the mixing of photochemical hazes by the large-scale circulation in the atmospheres of hot Jupiter exoplanets at Extreme Solar Systems IV in Reykjavik, Iceland. With over 600 participants, this was the largest exoplanet conference ever held. Maria reports that she was able to participate in in-depth conversations with other scientists about their exoplanet research, resulting in a collaboration on a Hubble Space Telescope proposal. Maria was also able to explore Iceland's volcanic and glacial geology.
Shane Stone
Shane attended the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences meeting and presented his work on the delivery of water to the upper atmosphere of Mars. He reports that the networking opportunities were particularly valuable, given that he is expecting to graduate in May 2020.