{"id":181935,"date":"2023-08-16T14:28:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T00:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=181935"},"modified":"2024-03-14T16:17:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T02:17:34","slug":"manoa-astronomy-national-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/08\/16\/manoa-astronomy-national-award\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> astronomy students win national, university awards"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"Collage<\/p>\n

Six graduate students at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Institute for Astronomy<\/a> (IfA<\/abbr>) have received local and national recognition for their research and mentorship.<\/p>\n

Erica Bufanda, a graduate student in the final year of her PhD<\/abbr> research project, and Jason Hinkle, a fifth-year student, were awarded Future Investigators in NASA<\/abbr> Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST<\/abbr>) grants for their thesis work. Funded by NASA<\/abbr>, these highly-competitive grants are for student-designed research projects that contribute to NASA<\/abbr>\u2019s Science Mission Directorate<\/a> (SMD<\/abbr>) science, technology, and exploration goals. It is rare for two graduate students in one department to receive this award, with only 10% of applicants being successful.<\/p>\n

\"Erica
Erica Bufanda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Erica Bufanda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bufanda studies long period comets (LPC<\/abbr>s) to address NASA<\/abbr>\u2019s SMD<\/abbr> goal to understand how our solar system formed. To do this, she leads an observational survey that utilizes three years of coordinated follow-up observations from the Keck, Gemini, and Canada-France-Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Telescope observatories on Maunakea to track and model cometary activity in nearly 100 newly discovered LPC<\/abbr>s.<\/p>\n

Her ground-based observations and analyses will provide invaluable context for future NASA<\/abbr> missions to these types of objects.<\/p>\n

Jason Hinkle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinkle\u2019s project, “Tidal Disruption Events Under the Multiwavelength Microscope,” studies this long-predicted but only recently observed phenomenon that occurs when a star approaches sufficiently close to a supermassive black hole to be shredded by the black hole\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n

Using data at many wavelengths of light, from X-rays to the radio, he hopes to better understand the details of the material around black holes.<\/p>\n

\"Grey
Grey Murphree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grey Murphree<\/strong><\/p>\n

Third-year student Grey Murphree received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.<\/p>\n

The award provides three full years of funding for graduate school.<\/p>\n

Their doctoral dissertation on measuring density fluctuations at high redshift, with IfA<\/abbr> Astronomer István Szapudi, will use ground-based data from IfA<\/abbr>\u2019s H20<\/abbr> survey<\/a> and space-based data from the recently-launched Euclid<\/a> mission, to map the large-scale distribution of matter in the distant Universe.<\/p>\n

\"Maria
Maria Vincent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maria Vincent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maria Vincent, a third-year graduate student, was awarded an American Astronomical Society<\/a> (AAS<\/abbr>) International Travel Grant to support travel to the Protostars and Planet VII<\/abbr><\/a> conference, held in April 2023 in Kyoto, Japan. Vincent presented her work on high-contrast, multi-wavelength imaging of a disk of planet-forming material around a star using the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics suite. Her grant primarily supports early-career scientists, those from smaller institutions or from underserved populations, and whose participation at the meeting is important for U.S.<\/abbr> visibility.<\/p>\n

“The AAS<\/abbr> travel grant is vital in creating an opportunity for early career scientists like me to expand our network and reach in our field of interest. This particular conference was a convention of scientists of all career levels specific to my subfield so I was able to learn a lot, and interact with faculty and students alike from around the world\u2014receiving feedback on my work, meeting potential collaborators, and making some friends along the way,” explained Vincent.<\/p>\n

Aldo Sepulveda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two astronomy graduate students received recognition for their efforts outside of research. Aldo Sepulveda, also a third-year graduate student, received a UH<\/abbr> Mānoa Graduate Student Organization Merit Based Award<\/a> for Mentoring. Given to only two UH<\/abbr> graduate students per year across all disciplines, this award recognizes excellence in mentoring. Sepulveda has worked with multiple undergraduate students from under-represented groups to support their STEM<\/abbr> careers. Two other students, along with Sepulveda, attended the 241st AAS<\/abbr> Meeting in Seattle, Washington, where they presented their research.<\/p>\n

\"Federica
Federica Chiti<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Federica Chiti<\/strong><\/p>\n

Third-year student Federica Chiti received the Graduate Student Organization Hannah Liebreich Merit Based Award for Teaching, which recognizes graduate students who use creativity and effort to improve course content\/curriculum, and\/or go beyond normal teaching responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Thanks to this award, she plans to develop an app that uses augmented reality to teach students about the formation and evolution of stars.<\/p>\n

Both Sepulveda and Chiti also received Honorable Mentions in the AAS<\/abbr> Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards<\/a> at the 241st AAS<\/abbr> Meeting. These are given to recognize exemplary research by undergraduate and graduate students who present at one of the poster sessions at the AAS<\/abbr> annual meetings.<\/p>\n

“It is a true pleasure to see our graduate students being recognized for their outstanding efforts in research, mentorship, and teaching,” said IfA<\/abbr> astronomer and Graduate Chair Michael Liu. “IfA<\/abbr> has a long history of top-notch graduates who go on to become young leaders in their fields, and I look forward to these current award-winners continuing this tradition. But until then, I\u2019m happy they will be with us for a while longer —on top of their academic contributions, they have been lively and engaged members of our community and we are lucky to have them in the IfA<\/abbr> ʻohana<\/span>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six graduate students at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½ Institute for Astronomy (IfA<\/abbr>) have received local and national recognition for their research and mentorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[34,35,1466,660,9,1626],"class_list":["post-181935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-astronomy","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-manoa","tag-women-of-uh","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181935"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181966,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181935\/revisions\/181966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}