Metadata
Title
Thesis Topics
Category
general
UUID
3cd91c30c08f4daa94bd9009f6676980
Source URL
https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/thesis-topics
Parent URL
https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/undergraduate-program
Crawl Time
2026-03-09T03:24:48+00:00
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Thesis Topics

Source: https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/thesis-topics Parent: https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/undergraduate-program

2024

James Cornelison, “Constraints on Electromagnetic Parity Violation in the Cosmic Microwave Background using BICEP3” (October 25, 2023)   Advisor: John Kovac\ Michael Foley, “Shock-Turbulence Interactions in Star Formation.” (April 23, 204) Advisor: Alysssa Goodman\ Ana Maria Delgado, “Analyzing cosmological-hydrodynamical simulations in light of future optical surveys.” (April 30, 2024) Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Zachary Murray, “Small Bodies and Large Surveys: What Modern Dynamics can teach us about the Solar System.” (May 1, 2024) Advisor: Matt Holman\ Magda Siwek,“Signatures of Circumbinary Disk Dynamics in Massive Black Hole Binary Populations.” (May 1, 2024) Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner\ Andrew Saydjari (Physics), “Statistical Models of the Spatial, Kinematic, and Chemical Complexity of Dust.” Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner\ Emily Pass, “Terrestrial Planets in the Mid-to-Late M-Dwarf Context: Insights on the Spindown of Fully Convective Stars and the Rarity of Jupiter Analogs." Advisor: Dave Charbonneau\

2023

Floor Broekgaarden, “Gravitational-Wave Paleontology: A New Frontier to Probe Massive Binary Stars Across Cosmic History” (April 24, 2023) Advisor: Edo Berger\ Daniel Palumbo, “Interferometric Measurement of the Magnetization and Spin of Supermassive Black Holes (April 24, 2023) Advisor: Michael Johnson\ Tanveer Karim, “Precision Cosmology with Emission-Line Galaxies” (April 26, 2023) Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Lieke van Son, “The First Pieces of the Gravitational-wave Pogenitor Population Puzzle” (April 28, 2023) Advisor: Selma de Mink\ Charles Law, “Zooming in on the Chemistry of Star and Planet Formation” (April 28, 2023) Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Kristo Ment, “Three Terrestrial Planets Transiting Mid-to-Late M Dwarfs and Constraints on the Occurrence of Such Worlds” (May 4, 2023)  Advisor: David Charbonneau\ Chima McGruder, “Exploring Correlations of High Altitude Aerosol Formation in Planetary Systems with Similar Parameters” (May 5, 2023) Advisor: Mercedes Lopez-Morales\ Juliana Garcia-Mejia, “The Tierras Observatory: An Ultra-precise Time-series Photometer to Characterize Nearby Low-mass Stars and Their Terrestrial Exoplanets” (May 9, 2023) Advisor: David Charbonneau

2022

Xiaohan Wu, "Probing Reionization with Currently Available Observables of Reionization" (April 27, 2022)  Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Maurice Wilson,"Interdisciplinary Spectroscopy: The Detection and Characterization of Solar CMEs, Stellar CMEs, and Exoplanets" (April 28, 2022)  Advisor:John Raymond, John Eastman\ Ian Weaver, "Atmospheric characterization of high-gravity hot Jupiters with ACCESS" (April 29, 2022)  Advisor: Mercedes Lopez-Morales\ Rohan Naidu, "Probing Reionization with Currently Available Observables of Reionization" (April 27, 2022)  Advisor: Charles Conroy\ Nina Maksimova, "AbacusSummit: Next Generation N-Body Cosmology" (May 9, 2022)    Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Boryana Hadzhiyska, "Forward Modeling in the Era of Cosmological Surveys" (May 11, 2022)  Advisor:Daniel Eisenstein, Lars Hernquist\ Brandon Curd, "Numerical Simulations of Super-Eddington Accretion Disks and Their Application to Tidal Disruption Events" (June 28, 2022)  Advisor: Ramesh Narayan\ Chantanelle Nava, "Tackling Stellar Active Regions in Radial Velocities: Strategies to Improve and Expand Small Exoplanet Mass Measurements" (June 29, 2022)Advisor: Mercedes Lopez-Morales\ Daniel Violette, "Optimizing CdZnTe Detectors to Discover High Energy Transient Phenomena" (September 7, 2022) Advisor: Jonathan Grindlay

2021

Munazza Alam, "Characterizing Distant Worlds: Atmospheric Reconnaissance of Giant Planets with Hubble" (April 6, 2021) Advisor:Mercedes Lopez-Morales\ Sihan Yuan, "Towards better interpretation of small-scale structure of the Universe" (April 20, 2021)  Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Seth Gossage, "Next Generation Stellar Models with Rotation" (April 23, 2021)Advisor: Charles Conroy\ Amber Medina, “The Magnetic Connection Between Flares, Rotation, and Age for the Volume-Complete Sample of Fully Convective M Dwarfs within 15 Parsecs" (April 29, 2021) Advisor: David Charbonneau\ Jamila Pegues, "Protoplanetary Disk Chemistry across the Stellar Spectrum" (April 30, 2021)  Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Ellen Price, "Simulating Protoplanetary Disk Dynamics and Investigating their Exoplanet Outcomes" (May 3, 2021)  Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Sebastian Gomez, "Exotic Transients and How to Find Them" (May 4, 2021)  Advisor: Edo Berger\ Tarraneh Eftekhari, "Unveiling the Transient Radio and Millimeter Sky" (May 6, 2021)Advisor: Edo Berger\ Ana-Roxana Pop, "Computational Modeling of the Baryon Content of Galaxies and Clusters in Cosmological Simulations" (May 7, 2021)  Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Theron Carmichael, "Dwarfing expectations: The rapid expansion of the transiting brown dwarf population in the era of the TESS mission." (May 10, 2021) Advisor: David Latham\ Ioana Zelko, "Stardust and Cosmology" (June 23, 2021)  Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner\ John Lewis, "Structurally Sound: The Effect of Cloud Structure on 3 Pillars of Star Formation" (August 24, 2021) Advisor:  Charles Lada\

2020

Victoria Ashley Villlar, "Time-Domain Studies in the New Eras of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics and Big Data"  (April 14, 2020)Advisor: Edo Berger\ Zoe Todd, "From Astronomy to Chemistry: Origins of the Building Blocks of Life" (April 15, 2020) Advisor: Dimitar Sasselov\ Catherine Zucker, "Charting our Uncharted Milky Way" (April 2020)  Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner, Alyssa Goodman\ Joshua Speagle, "Mapping the Milky Way in the Age of Gaia" (May 6, 2020)  Advisor: Charlie Conroy, Daniel Eisenstein, & Doug Finkbeiner\ Hannah Diamond-Lowe, "A First Reconnaissance of the Atmospheres of Terrestrial Exoplanets Using Ground-Based Optical Transits and Space-Based UV Spectra" (2020)  Advisor: David Charbonneau

2019

Meng Gu, "Stellar Populations and Assembly Histories of Galaxies in Nearby Massive Clusters" (April 3, 2019)  Advisor: Jennifer Yee\ Xiawei Wang, "Non-thermal emission from collisionless astrophysical shocks and their observational implications" (April 17, 2019)  Advisor: Avi Loeb\ Peter Blanchard, "Exploring Exotic Transients: Stellar Explosions, Tidal Disruptions, and Compact Object Mergers in the Golden Age of Time-Domain Astronomy" (April 26, 2019)  Advisor: Edo Berger\ Lehman Garrison, "Abacus: N-body Cosmology for the Next Generation of Dark Energy Science" (May 3, 2019)  Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Benjamin Cook, "Computational Approaches to Studying the Stellar Populations of Galaxies" (May 7, 2019) Advisor: Charles Conroy

2018

Kate Alexander, "Cosmic Extremes: Probing Energetic Transients with Radio Observations" (April 10, 2018)   Advisor: Edo Berger\ Fernando Beccera, "Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds in the First Galaxies" (May 1, 2018)   Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ How-Huan Chen, "The Life and Death of Interstellar Turbulence: The Intriguing Case of Ophiuchus" (May 4, 2018)   Advisor: Alyssa Goodman\ Jieun Choi, "From Stars to Galaxies: Unveiling Their Properties, Connection and Evolution with Next Generation Stellar Models" (April 10, 2018)  Advisor: Charles Conroy\ Pierre Christian, "Novel Astrophysical Constraints on Black Holes" (May 2, 2018)   Advisor: Avi Loeb\ Kunting (Eddie) Chua, "Structure of Dark Matter Halos in Illustris: Effect of Baryons (September 25, 2018)  Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Philip Cowperthwaite, "From Design to Detection: Joint Gravitational Wave and Electromagnetic Astronomy" (April 20, 2018)  Advisor: Edo Berger\ MarionDierickx, "Simulations of Local Group Galactic Interactions"  (July 10, 2017)     Advisor: Avi Loeb\ Christopher Faesi, "The Physical Nature of the GMC Population in NGC 300" (December 11, 2017)  Advisor: Charles Lada\ Xinyi Guo, "Particle Acceleration and Heating in Low Mach Number Collisionless Shocks" (December 13, 2017)  Advisor: Ramesh Narayan\ Luke Kelley, "Massive Black-Hole Binary Mergers: Dynamics, Environments & Expected Detections" (April 13, 2018)  Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Ryan Loomis, "Millimeter/submillimeter Observations of Chemical and Physical Complexity in Protoplanetary Disks" (April 30, 2018)  Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Stephen Portillo, "Counting Stars: Developing probabilistic cataloging for crowded fields" (April 17, 2018)  Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner\ Anjali Tripathi, "The Resolved Spatial Distribution of Solids in Protoplanetary Disks" (April 2, 2018)  Advisor: Sean Andrews

2017

Dawn Graninger, "Organic Chemistry during Low-Mass Star-Formation: The Role of Reaction Barriers and Ice Desorption" (April 24, 2017)  Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Kirit Karkare, "Multifrequency Beam Systematics and Measurements of B-Mode Polarization with the BICEP/Keck Array Cosmic Microwave Background Experiments" (April 20, 2017)  Advisor: John Kovac\ Meredith MacGregor, "Millimeter Studies of Nearby Debris Disks" (March 31, 2017)  Advisor: David Wilner\ Philip Mocz, "Moving mesh magnetohydrodynamics: magnetic processes in star formation and cosmology" (April 21, 2017)  Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Sukrit Ranjan, "The UV Environment for Prebiotic Chemistry: Connecting Origin-of-Life Scenarios to Planetary Environments" (April 7, 2017)Advisor: Dimitar Sasselov\ Laura Schaefer, "The Atmosphere-Interior Connection: Rocky Planets as Linked Chemical Systems" (October 18, 2016) Advisor: Dimitar Sasselov\ Joshua Suresh, "The Coevolution of Galaxies and their Environments" (March 17, 2017)   Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Yuan-Sen Ting, "Unraveling the History of the Milky Way through Chemical Tagging" (December 10, 2016)  Advisor: Charles Conroy\ Andrew Vanderburg, "The Past, Present, and Future of Planetary Systems" (May 2, 2017) Advisor: David Latham\ Sarah Wellons, "Massive Compact Galaxies: A Case Study of the Diversity of Evolutionary Pathways in Cosmological Simulations" (April 7, 2017)   Advisor: Lars Hernquist

2016

Aaron Bray, "Galactic Conformity via Small-Scale Clustering in Simulations and Surveys" (April 25, 2016)  Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Ian Czekala, "The Fundamental Properties of Young Stars" (May 3, 2016)  Advisor: Sean Andrews\ Jason Dittman, "Distances, Massess, Radii, and Metallicities of the Small Stars in the Solar Neighborhood" (April 15, 2016)   Advisor: David Charbonneau\ Maria Drout, "Astronomical Transients as Probes of Stellar Evolution and Mass-Loss (a.k.a. What Peculiar Transients Can Teach Us About Stellar Evolution)" (April 26, 2016)  Advisor: Edo Berger\ Gregory Green, "Mapping Milky Way Dust in 3D with Stellar Photometry" (May 10, 2016)  Advisor: Doug Finkbeiner\ Elisabeth Newton, "The Evolution of Rotation and Magnetism in Small Stars Near the Sun" (April 29, 2016)    Advisor: David Charbonneau\ Ana-Maria Piso, "Origins of Gas Giant Compositions: The Role of Disk Location and Dynamics" (April 27, 2016)   Advisor: Karin Öberg\ Vicente Rodriguez-Gomez, "Galaxy mergers and some consequences: the cosmological context" (May 5, 2016)   Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Katherine Rosenfield, "Applications of High-Resolution Observations at Millimeter Wavelengths" (September 18, 2015)   Advisor: Sean Andrews\ Zachary Slepian, "Revitalizing the 3-Point Correlation Function Of Galaxies to Sharpen the BAO Standard Ruler" (April 15, 2016)   Advisor: Daniel Eisenstein\ Lauren Woolsey, "Magnetic Influences on the Solar Wind" (May 2, 2016) Advisor: Stephen Cranmer and Alyssa Goodman

2015

\ Courtney Dressing, "The Prevalence and Compositions of Small Planets" (April 1, 2015)    Advisor: David Charbonneau\ Tanmoy Laskar, "The Diversity and Versatility of Gamma-ray Bursts" (April 29, 2015)  Advisor: Edo Berger\ Gongjie Li, "Long-term Dynamics of High Mass Ratio Multiples" (April 1, 2015)  Advisor: Avi Loeb\ Maxwell Moe, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Eclipsing Binaries" (July 15, 2015)  Advisor: Rosanne DiStefano\ Ranghild Lunnan, "The Properties and Environments of Superluminous Supernovae" (April 27, 2015)   Advisor: Edo Berger\ Dylan Nelson, "How Galaxies Get Their Gas" (May 1, 2015)    Advisor: Lars Hernquist\ Sarah Rugheimer, "Hues of Habitability: Characterizing Pale Blue Dots Around Other Stars" (January 26, 2015)  Advisors: Dimitar Sasselov and Lisa Kaltenegger\ Li Zeng, "Uncovering the Interior Structure and Chemistry of Solid Exoplanets" (May 5, 2015)  Advisor: Dimitar Sasselov\ Yucong Zhu, "The Bright Side of Black Holes" (May 11, 2015)  Advisor: Ramesh Narayan

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