ESP Biography
REBEKAH DAWSON, Harvard Astronomy PhD student
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Major: Astronomy College/Employer: Harvard Year of Graduation: G |
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Brief Biographical Sketch:
I am an alumna of Wellesley College and current graduate student in Harvard's astronomy program. My research interests include planets around other stars, moons in our solar system, and Kuiper Belt objects (like Pluto!) in our solar system out past Neptune. I'm currently working on projects about moons of Uranus with chaotic orbits, extra-solar planets with ambiguous orbital periods, and what the Kuiper Belt tells us about the history of the giant planets in our solar system. My hobbies include reading, folk dancing, and astronomy outreach. Read an article that appeared in New Scientist about my work on extra-solar planets here: Past Classes(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)S4006: Hunting for Extra-Solar Planets in Splash! 2010 (Nov. 20 - 21, 2010)
Who will discover the next planet around another star? It may be you! Unlike projects like Folding@Home or SETI@Home designed by scientists who want to use your computer to crunch their data, the world's premier planet hunting team at Lick Observatory wants to use your brain. Come learn how astronomers combine the celestial mechanics developed by Kepler and Newton with data from the latest telescopes and NASA missions to discover planets around other stars. You will receive all the training you need to use the Systemic Console -- a free piece software developed by astronomers at Lick -- to search for new extra-solar planets by analyzing radial velocity measurements.
S3599: MIT Hogwarts in HSSP Summer 2010 (Jul. 11, 2010 - Jul. 11, 2011)
The magic of Harry Potter meets the mind-blowing science of MIT! Enroll at MIT Hogwarts and you will be sorted into a House and learn everything the modern witch/wizard-science needs to know in a series of mini-lectures, demos, crafts, riddles and puzzles, and other activities. We'll draw on the book the Science of Harry Potter and our own imaginations for inspiration.
S3400: Hunting for Extra-Solar Planets in HSSP Spring 2010 (Apr. 17, 2010)
Who will discover the next planet around another star? It may be you! Unlike projects like Folding@Home or SETI@Home designed by scientists who want to use your computer to crunch their data, the world's premier planet hunting team at Lick Observatory wants to use your brain. Come learn how astronomers combine the celestial mechanics developed by Kepler and Newton with data from the latest telescopes and NASA missions to discover planets around other stars. You will receive all the training you need to use the Systemic Console -- a free piece software developed by astronomers at Lick -- to search for new extra-solar planets by analyzing radial velocity measurements.
S2923: Hunting for Extra-Solar Planets in Splash! 2009 (Nov. 21 - 22, 2009)
Who will discover the next planet around another star? It may be you! Unlike projects like Folding@Home or SETI@Home designed by scientists who want to use your computer to crunch their data, the world's premier planet hunting team at Lick Observatory wants to use your brain. Come learn about the techniques astronomers use to discover extra-solar planets and receive all the training you need to use the systemic console -- a free piece software developed by astronomers at Lick -- to search for new extra-solar planets by analyzing radial velocity measurements. At the end we'll explore some of the other "citizen astronomer" projects you can get involved with, including galaxy zoo, a galaxy classification project where participants have discovered a new type of galaxy call "green peas."
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