Welcome,

    I am a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy here at the University of Iowa.  This fall I am a TA for 1 section of Modern Astronomy and 2 sections of General Astronomy.  

    My research in astronomy has included a search for new variable stars, looking for periodicity in BL Lacertae (an active galactic nuclei), measuring the mass of dark matter in galaxies using galactic gravitational lensing, and analysis of small comet images.  I do my research using the Iowa Robotic Observatory (IRO) which is located near Sonoita, Arizona.  It is a fully automated 50 cm telescope that is run over the internet.

    Currently, I am running the Very-Late-Type Spiral and Irregular Galaxy Supernova Search.  We have about nine months of observation time (~112 years) on 172 of these types of galaxies and can finally start to interpret the data.   It appears that the SNe rates in Sdm-Sm and Irr galaxies is much higher than earlier type spirals for Type II and Type Ib/c supernovae.  This could have implications for galactic chemical evolution models (CEMs).  There is a page here that tells more about this interesting project and some results and it also has some nice movies of supernovae we have seen during the search.

    Now that I am a grad student I am beginning a project that will lead to a master's thesis.  It involves using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (the VLBA and VLA combined) to study non-thermal emission from wind-wind interactions in Wolf Rayet stars in binary systems.  Also, we will be looking for evidence for non-thermal emission from areas around the WR star not associated with the bow shock where the winds from the two stars collide.  This may provide a good test as to the mass loss rate of WR stars and maybe O and B stars as well.

    I also work for the space physics group.  My job includes programming and data analysis of plasma wave spectrograms from the Galileo space probe.