Ready for a busy spring semester!
The first semester at CU Boulder has been an enjoyable chaos of settling in, traveling, and preparing to launch a couple of new projects. I’m enjoying my new department and new hometown, and am looking forward to the spring semester!
Research:
I’m continuing my research in a variety of areas: nearby LGRB host galaxies, new stellar population synthesis and photoionization models, nearby core-collapse SN host galaxies, and the physical properties of red supergiants. Some of this work is a continuation or extension of the research I did during my PhD these, a couple of these projects are new, and all of them involve interesting observing runs, new and interesting data, and/or hours of cursing at new bugs in my models. Sometimes all three. Either way, it’s shaping up to be a great semester for doing some very interesting research!
Travels:
-I’ll be heading down to Apache Point Observatory in early February to observe with the ARCES echelle spectrograph on the 3.5m telescope. I’ve visited APO before but never observed there, and am excited to use a new telescope and instrument!
-I’ll be flying to Chile at the end of March for two nights of classical observations with GMOS at Gemini-S! I always love observing in Chile, and am once again looking forward to using a new telescope!
-In mid-April I’ll be giving an invited talk at the IAU 279 “Death of Massive Stars” symposium in Nikko, Japan. The conference is shaping up to be fascinating, and I cannot WAIT to see Japan for the first time!
-In May I’ll be traveling to Seattle, WA to give a spring semester colloquium talk at the University of Washington.
-Finally, in late June I’ll be giving an invited talk at the “Supernovae and their Host Galaxies” meeting in Sydney, Australia.
Teaching:
I’ve volunteered to teach a weekly recitation hour of the APS graduate course ASTR 5120, “Radiative and Dynamical Processes“, taught by Dr. Rosalba Perna. It’ll be a good and low-key introduction to teaching again after a hiatus during grad school; plus, I’ll confess that preparing for the recitation sections has been an excellent and much-needed refresher on some of the course components!
All in all, 2011 looks to be getting off to a great and busy start!
