July 2015
- Professors Hooman Mohseni and Mel Ulmer, along with external collaborator Olivier Guyon of the Subaru Telescope, were awarded a grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Read Full Story.
June 2015
- Graduate student Sam Hadden was awarded the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship for 2015-2016. Hadden has been a grad student at Northwestern for the past four years, working with CIERA faculty member Yoram Lithwick on exoplanets.
- Professor Melville P. Ulmer received funding from NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC). As a NIAC Fellow, he will serve as Principal Investigator for a project dubbed "Aperture," short for A Precise Extremely-large Reflective Telescope Using Re-configurable Elements. Find out more about this project.
May 2015
- A number of students were awarded funding for summer research and Illinois Space Grant projects. See full student listing.
April 2015
- Postdoctoral Fellow Aaron Geller won first place in the proposals division of the 2015 Northwestern Data Visualization Challenge with his interactive visualization exploring stellar evolution. This work-in-progress will allow students and other astronomy enthusiasts to investigate the changes that occur in stars over cosmic time.
- The National Science Foundation awarded two prestigious Graduate Fellowships to students affiliated with CIERA. One Fellowship was awarded to Josh Fixelle, who works with Professor Fred Rasio on the dynamics of extrasolar planets. A second Fellowship was awarded to Kyle Kremer; Kyle worked with Professor Vicky Kalogera as an undergraduate student at Northwestern, and will be rejoin CIERA and the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Fall as a graduate student. Congratulations to Josh and Kyle!
- A Northwestern team led by CIERA Director Vicky Kalogera was awarded a 5-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help train graduate students in the interdisciplinary fields of data analytics and Big Data. The program, entitled "From the Earth and the Universe to the Successful Careers of the Future," was one of only eight proposals funded across the country, out of approximately 240 proposals that were received by the NSF.
February 2015
- CIERA graduate student Meagan Morscher won the Martin and Beate Block Award for her presentation at the Aspen Center for Physics' winter conference on Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. The Block award is given to one promising young physicist at each winter conference, in honor of the founder of the winter conference series, Martin Block. Meagan received training in science communication through Northwestern University's Ready, Set, Go program, which started within CIERA and has now been adopted by The Graduate School as a flagship graduate student communication training program.
October 2014
- Professor Fred Rasio has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. On that advisory board, he joins a group of researchers who work in fields spanning from quantum physics, chemistry, and biophysics to Earth & planetary physics and astronomy. Together, they will help direct the scientific programs held at KITP, which is regarded as an international center for facilitating collaborations and advancing theory. Congratulations, Fred!
September 2014
- Science in Society 2014 contest “Capturing the Beauty of Science”s seeks to find the most beautiful science images from researchers all over campus. CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow Aaron Geller won Fourth Place in the competition for his 3D stereo image of the evolution of a star cluster; CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow Elizabeth Hicks won an Honorable Mention for an image from her simulation of a flame, like those found in an exploding star, or “supernova”, showing how that flame is stretched and deformed by a gravitational instability. Read Full Story
- Congratulations to Professor David Meyer for being named to the 2013-2014 Associated Student Government Faculty & Administration Honor Roll! To be named, professors must be first nominated by Northwestern undergraduate students; students are asked to recognize those teachers who have "gone above and beyond" in their teaching.