Background: Galaxy cannibalism/merging appears to be an important process through which galaxies grow in mass/size and evolve. There are many examples of ongoing collisions between two large galaxies and many involving the tidal disruption of a small (“dwarf”) galaxy by a large one. We have identified a rare case of a dwarf galaxy cannibalizing an…Continue Reading Studying a Rare Dwarf Galaxy Cannibalism Event
Tracking Marine Mammals and Seabirds
Processing light level geolocation tracking data for tagged elephant seals. Flipper tag resighting and census work at ano nuevo state park. Exploring potential causes of at-sea mortality of elephant seals. Mentor: Patrick Robinson, Staff Secondary Mentors: Ms. Jen Maresh, Ms. Chandra Goetsch, Prof. Daniel Costa Location: Long Marine Lab…Continue Reading Tracking Marine Mammals and Seabirds
Flk2 Lineage Tracing Reveals a Novel, Developmentally-Restricted Hematopoietic Stem Cell
Using a recently characterized in vivo lineage tracing model, I have identified a novel fetal hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) that, although capable of supporting reconstitution of the blood system in an irradiated adult recipient, does not reside in the adult bone marrow in situ. This novel fetal HSC exhibits a differential lineage bias and gives…Continue Reading Flk2 Lineage Tracing Reveals a Novel, Developmentally-Restricted Hematopoietic Stem Cell
Synthesis, Biological Screening, and Structure-Activity Relationships of Non-Proteinogenic Cyclic Hexapeptide Libraries
Combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening are indispensable tools used in chemical biology to synthesize diverse chemical libraries and identify potential drug leads. Natural products and their derivatives have historically served as successful drug leads due to their structural complexity and co-evolution within biological systems. Components of natural product scaffolds may serve as beneficial motifs in the development of new biological probes….Continue Reading Synthesis, Biological Screening, and Structure-Activity Relationships of Non-Proteinogenic Cyclic Hexapeptide Libraries
Building Galaxies
Individual galaxies are dynamic evolving systems, but observational astronomers are limited to capturing them at a single point in their lives. To connect observations at different times and to understand what they mean requires a theoretical model. We have built a simple (1 dimensional) but powerful code to simulate how galaxies have evolved over the…Continue Reading Building Galaxies
The Structure of the Milky Way Halo
By measuring the structure of the most distant part of our Galaxy, we can learn about how our Galaxy formed and how other galaxies form. We will do this by counting stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, and by using the inverse-square law to get the distances to stars whose brightness we know….Continue Reading The Structure of the Milky Way Halo
Searching for Jupiter Analogs in the Kepler Dataset
The student will take the results from an algorithmic search of the Kepler dataset and work on verifying if tagged light curves actually contain signatures from planetary transits. The light curves marked positive will then be analyzed to determine accurate size/period/eccentricity of the planet(s). Additionally, the student will use preexisting procedures to create model transits…Continue Reading Searching for Jupiter Analogs in the Kepler Dataset
Finding Candidate Materials for Topological insulators
A new class of materials called topological insulators (TIs) holds promise for robust counter-propagating spin currents, with potential applications in numerous systems, ranging from spintronics to quantum computing and beyond. TIs exhibit rather unusual behavior in that they are insulating in the bulk but conducting on the surfaces, a result of the topological nature of…Continue Reading Finding Candidate Materials for Topological insulators
A Virtual Cell for Glioblastoma
Glioblastoma, or brain cancer, afflicts one out of four people with cancer. In our project, we are constructing an in-silico brain cell in order to help provide an accurate diagnosis and help with the prognosis of glioblastoma. There are a variety of possibilities for an intern to help with the project based on their scientific…Continue Reading A Virtual Cell for Glioblastoma