Hi everyone!\u00a0 My name is Miriam Fuchs, and I\u2019m a junior Astrophysics major at Haverford.\u00a0 This summer I\u2019m working with Professor Andrew West (HC \u201999) in the Astronomy department at Boston University. \u00a0So far it has been a blast!<\/p>\n
My research focuses on white dwarf and M dwarf binary pairs.\u00a0 Using spectroscopic data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we are able to look at multiple spectra of each binary that have been taken over a short period of time.\u00a0 Over the course of a couple of hours, each binary will typically have 3-8 exposures taken.\u00a0 Because these binaries are so close together and moving so quickly, their spectra will have visibly shifted from one exposure to the next.\u00a0 Because of this, we can use Doppler shifting to calculate the radial velocities of the white dwarfs and M dwarfs and learn more about their general kinematics.<\/p>\n
Working at BU has been an exciting experience.\u00a0 Having multiple floors of astronomers, and lots of grad students to consult has definitely highlighted some of the differences between working at a large research university and a liberal arts college.\u00a0 It\u2019s also been great working with a Haverford alum \u2013 while I\u2019m no longer in the basement of the INSC, it still feels like a Haverford lab; there\u2019s a lot of collaboration between professors and students, everyone helps out one another, and there’s a general sense of being part of a community within our group. \u00a0More than anything else, my research experience this summer has taught me how much I enjoy conducting research.<\/p>\n
Being in Boston also has its perks! There\u2019s delicious food all around, great museums, and lots of things to do. Later in the month, our lab is taking a group field trip to Fenway to watch a Red Sox game \u2013 I\u2019m really excited!<\/p>\n
All in all, it\u2019s been a fantastic summer so far.\u00a0 It\u2019s been great reading everyone\u2019s updates on the Astronoblog.\u00a0 Hope everyone else is having a wonderful summer!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi everyone!\u00a0 My name is Miriam Fuchs, and I\u2019m a junior Astrophysics major at Haverford.\u00a0 This summer I\u2019m working with Professor Andrew West (HC \u201999) in the Astronomy department at Boston University. \u00a0So far it has been a blast! My research focuses on white dwarf and M dwarf binary pairs.\u00a0 Using spectroscopic data from the … Continue reading “Summer Research at BU”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.haverford.edu\/astronoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}