Team Members

Faculty

Prof Adam Burgasser

Prof. Adam Burgasser is Director of the Cool Star Lab, and a founding faculty member of the UCSD Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He is an observational astrophysicist who studies the coldest stars, brown dwarfs, and extrasolar planets. His major research contributions in astronomy include defining the T dwarf spectral class, discovering the first halo brown dwarfs, investigations of substellar multiplicity and magnetic activity, and contributing to the discovery and analysis of TRAPPIST-1 and other low-mass exoplanetary system. Adam also conducts education research on video-based instruction, project- and team-based learning, social-emotional learning, embodied learning, and graduate skill development. Adam is actively engaged in issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the physical sciences, and is a UCSD LEAD Fellow and member of the Executive Committee for the UCSD Black Studies Project.

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Adam is originally from Buffalo, NY, where he graduated from Sweet Home High School. He earned his Bachelor's of Science in Physics at UCSD and PhD in Physics (with an emphasis on Planetary Science) at Caltech, with advisors Mike Brown and J. Davy Kirkpatrick. Adam was a Hubble Fellow at UCLA and a Spitzer Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, then joined the Physics faculty at MIT (where he bequeathed the Adam J. Burgasser Endowed Chair of Astrophysics) before joining the Physics faculty at UCSD. Adam has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Exeter, a Severo Ochoa Senior Visitor at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and a Hans Sigrist Visiting Professor at Universitat Bern. Adam is currently a AAS Vice President, served on a National Academies of Sciences Astro2020 Decadal Survey panel, and has testified before Congress and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on astrophysical science and equity. Adam has been recognized for his work at UCSD with an Inclusive Excellence award, a School of Physics Science EDI Excellence Award, an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor award, and Revelle College and UCSD Distinguished Teaching awards. A former national champion diver, Adam also earned NACDA Scholar-Athlete, NCAA Top 8 and NCAA Silver Anniversary awards, and is inducted in the NCAA Hall of Champions.

Prof. Quinn Konopacky is a a founding faculty of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, whose research focuses on high resolution techniques on large, ground-based telescopes, applied to study star and planet formation and evolution.  Prof. Konopacky uses adaptive optics-fed instruments on telescopes like the W.M. Keck Telescopes and the Gemini Telescopes in the near-infrared to perform detailed studies of young stars, brown dwarfs, and directly imaged planets.

Prof. Christopher Theissen is an Assistant Professor and founding faculty member of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics.  His  research interests center on studying the habitability of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. He is deeply interested in using low-mass stars as tracers of galactic kinematics, age, metallicity, etc. He is also exploring deep learning for object classification in next generation surveys. He was previously a UCSD Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, and is a minority scientist born of Peruvian and German descent. 

Postdoctoral Scholars & Research Scientists

Dr. Carl Melis is a Research Scientist in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics who investigates the formation, evolution, fate, and composition of rocky bodies (terrestrial-like planets, dwarf-planets, planetesimals, etc), and the application of ultra-precise astrometry from very-long baseline radio interferometry to study the physics of stars and star and planet formation processes. Dr. Melis was formally an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow and CASS Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSD, and earned the UCSD Chancellor's Postdoctoral Scholar Award in 2013.

Current Graduate Students

Preethi is a member of the inaugural graduate class for the UCSD Astronomy PhD program. She is originally from India and earned her BE in Mechanical Engineering from CMR Institute of Technology. Preethi is currently investigating ultracool dwarfs in TESS.

Emma is a member of the inaugural graduate class for the UCSD Astronomy PhD program She is originally from rural Montana and earned her BS in Astronomy & Planetary Science from ASU. Emma is studying optical and near-infrared spectra of low-temperature brown dwarfs.

Current Undergraduate Students

Weston Chester

UCSD Physics major who is investigating infrared spectra of dwarf and giant stars in the SpeX IRTF and IRSA Archives

UCSD Physics major who is researching machine learning methods applied to ultracool spectral binaries. Juan Diego received the 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Award

UCSD Data Science major who is developing machine learning tools to discover and analyze spectral binaries

UCSD physics major at UCSD who studies galaxy spectra from the IRTF & IRSA SpeX archives. 

UCSD Astrophysics major who is helping to develop the pyspextool code for reducing archival SpeX spectra

UCSD Astrophysics major who is helping to develop the pyspextool code for reducing archival SpeX spectra

UCSD Astrophysics and Applied Math major who is investigating the fidelity of SDSS stellar classifications using mahcine learning tools with Prof. Chris Theissen

Tianxing "Sky" Zhou

UCSD Physics major who is researching brown dwarfs and wide binary systems in Gaia. Tianxing received the 2021 Undergraduate Summer Research Award and 2023 TRELS summer scholarship.

Other Collaborators

Prof. Knight is a Professor of Critical Media Practices at U. Colorado Boulder, who collaborates on the Project Planetaria and cosmOcosm art-science projects.

Dr. Bjorn is an education research specialist who studies graduate training, and collaborates on implementation and assessment of the CERIC reading method and the impact of generative AI on STEM instruction.

Past Cool Star Lab members (and where are they now?)

Former Postdocs

Dr. Jon Rees was a postdoctoral scholar at UCSD. He previously earned his PhD in Astronomy at the U. Exeter, and is now a support astronomer at Lick Observatory.

Dr. Christine Nicholls was a postdoctoral scholar at UCSD. She previously earned her PhD in Astronomy at Australian National University

Dr. John Bochanski was a postdoctoral scholar at MIT. He previously earned his PhD in Astronomy at U. Washington, and is now a Professor of Physics & Computer Science at Rider University.

Dr. Andrew West was a postdoctoral scholar at MIT. He previously earned his PhD in Astronomy at U. Washington, and was a professor of Astronomy at Boston University

Former Graduate Students

Dr. Jacqueline Faherty earned her PhD in Physics & Astronomy at Stony Brook in 2010, researching brown dwarf kinematics and populations. Jackie is now a Senior Scientist at AMNH, and is a AAS Fellow.

Dr. Dagny Looper earned her PhD in Astronomy at U. Hawaii in 2011, investigating young and binary brown dwarfs through spectroscopy and high resolution imaging. Dagny is now an award-winning screenwriter and director

Dr. Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi earned her PhD in Physics at UCSD in 2017, researching brown dwarf binary systems. Daniella is now an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at U. Mass. Amherst College

Dr. Chih-chun "Dino" Hsu earned his PhD in Physics at UCSD in 2022, researching brown dwarf kinematics and multiplicity through high resolution spectroscopy. Dino is now a postdoctoral scholar at Northwestern University.

Dr. Christian Aganze earned his PhD in Physics at UCSD in 2023, studying ultracool dwarf populations in deep surveys through machine learning methods, and stream dynamics through numerical simulations. Christian is now a Stanford Science Fellow at Stanford University.

Dr. Roman Gerasoimov earned his PhD in Physics at UCSD in 2023, developing new non-solar metallicity models to study brown dwarfs in globular clusters and Population III stars. Roman is now a Society of Science Fellow at the University of Notre Dame

Former High School and Undergraduate Students, and other Research Mentees

Haley Steuber is an undergraduate Physics major at CSU Sacramento who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, characterizing a specrtal sample of previously unclassified nearby stars as part of the Calbridge/CAMPARE program.

Krystyn Roldan is an undergraduate Physics major at Chabot College who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, working with Dr. Carl Melis on UV emission from young stars as part of the UCSD STARS program.

Hunter Brooks is an undergraduate Planetary Sciences major at Northern Arizona University who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, studying metal-poor brown dwarfs through photometry and spectral model fitting as part of the UCSD STARS program

Ruqshana Amiri is an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering & Mathematics major as CSU Sacramento who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, examining the performance of generative AI on STEM assessments as part of the UCSD VERSA program.

Efrain Alvarado is an undergraduate Physics major at UC Berkeley who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023 as a UC LEADS scholar. He developed new atmosphere models for studying subsolar metallicity populations in the Milky Way. 

Brendan Duong was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who analyzing quasar spectra in the SpeX archive. He earned his BS in Physics in 2023, and is continuing on to a career in the Air Force.

Joman Wong was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who researched asteroid spectra from IRTF/SpeX. Joman was a recipient of the 2021 Undergraduate Summer Research Award, and earned his BS in Physics at UCSD in 2023. 

Malina Desai was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who conducted an honors thesis on machine learning methods for selecting large samples of ultracool dwarfs. Malina was a recipient of the 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Award, and earned her BS in Physics in 2023. She is now a post-bacc scholar at MIT studying gravitational wave detection through machine learning.

Jean Louis Marroquín Tapia is an undergraduate Physics major at Instituto de Polytechnico Naticional in Mexico who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, studying the infrared spectra of novae & supernovae in the IRTF SpeX archive through the ENLACE program

Rodrigo Cuesta Cortés is an high school student at Instituto de Polytechnico Naticional CECYD 9 in Mexico who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, studying the infrared spectra of novae & supernovae in the IRTF SpeX archive through the ENLACE program

Ekamjot Kaire is a student at Del Norte High School in San Diego who conducted research in the Cool Star Lab in 2023, studying young stars with Dr. Carl Melis.

Sven Anderson was a high school student from San Diego who worked on M dwarfs in TESS with Dr. Chris Theissen.

Christopher Danner was an undergraduate researcher in the Cool Star Lab. He is now a graduate student at SDSU in Astronomy.

Julissa Villalobos Valencia is an undergraduate major in Aerospace Engineering and LAMAT scholar who worked on characterizing an M dwarf companion to a nearby star.

Natalie Henriquez was an undergraduate researcher who worked on analyzing archival SpeX data through the TRELS Program. Natalie is now a graduate student at USC in Systems Engineering.

Mikaela Larkin was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who worked on modeling Population III stars through the Summer Undergraduate Research Program

Quinn Picard was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database

Jiayi Liang was an undergraduate Applied Math major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database 

Tiffany Liou was an undergraduate Astrophysics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database 

Natalie Lam was an undergraduate Astrophysics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database as a UCSD TRELS scholar

Theta Chun was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who worked on machine learning methods to analyze spectral datasets

Peter Knauss was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database 

Nico Falcon was an undergraduate Astrophysics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database

Chun-chin "Charlie" Yu was an undergraduate Astrophysics major at UCSD who worked on developing the SpeX Archive database 

Colin Bickel is a student at Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego who worked on improving index selection of unusual brown dwarfs as part of the ENLACE program

Iván Escobar Carmona was a high school student from Mexico who worked on improving index selection of unusual brown dwarfs as part of the ENLACE program

Angelica Whisnant was an undergraduate Physics major from Cal Poly Pomona and Calbridge scholar who worked on models of metal-poor globular cluster stars as part of the CAMPARE program

Luke McDermott was an undergraduate Math/Computer Science major who worked on machine learning methods to find spectral binaries.

Arantxa Mendiola Maytorena was a high school student from San Diego who worked on applying machine learning methods to brown dwarf classification as part of the ENLACE program

Dra. Adriana Nava Vega is a on the faculty of Chemical Science and Engineering at Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali (UABC), who worked on applying machine learning methods to brown dwarf classification as part of the ENLACE program

Carlos Arturo Espinoza Galicia is a Docente Investigador at the Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Huichapan, Mexico, who worked on applying machine learning methods to brown dwarf classification as part of the ENLACE program

Sharon Diamant was a visiting undergraduate Astronomy research student from Leiden University who worked on analyzing an unusually blue L dwarf. Sharon is now graduate student at Leiden and Research Intern at the European Space Agency.

Rocco Novello was an undergraduate researcher from UCSD who investigated white dwarf - M dwarf pairs with Dr. Carl Melis through the Undergraduate Summer Research Program. He is currently completing his BS in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.

Sohan Ghosh was an undergraduate researcher from UCSD who investigated white dwarf - M dwarf pairs with Dr. Carl Melis through the Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Sohan is now a graduate student in Physics at UC Davis

Delilah Jacobsen was an undegraduate researcher from UCSD who investigated companions to nearby stars with Dino Hsu through the Undergraduate Summer Research Program. She is currently completing her BS in Physics.

Carlos Daniel Verdaguer Guzmán was a summer undergraduate research student from Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana who worked on machine learning methods for brown dwarf classification through the ENLACE program

Zijie Gong was a summer undergraduate research student from Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana who worked on machine learning methods for brown dwarf classification through the ENLACE program

Eduardo Gauna Gutiérrez was a summer undergraduate research student from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California who worked on machine learning methods for brown dwarf classification through the ENLACE program

Mariana Payán Villalba was a summer undergraduate research student from Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior who worked on machine learning methods for brown dwarf classification through the ENLACE program

Eibar Ortiz Ortega was a summer undergraduate research student from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México who worked on machine learning methods for brown dwarf classification through the ENLACE program

Dorsa Majidi was a STARS summer research student from Palomar College who investigated the infrared spectra of brown dwarfs with SPLAT tools. Dorsa is now a graduate student at U. Wisconsin.

Joshua Hazlett was an undergraduate researcher from Morehouse College who participated in the UCSD-Morehouse-Spelman Bridge Program. Joshua helped build additional web interface tools for the SPLAT package, and is now a Business Transformation Consultant at IBM.

Niana Mohammed was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who integrated astroquery tools into the SPLAT package. Niana participated in the Fisk-Vanderbilt program and is now a graduate student Penn State University.

Russell van Linge was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who investigated the radio variability of two active L dwarfs. Russell is now a Data Scientist at Scripps Health.

Guillaume Shippee was a visiting undergraduate researcher from UC Berkeley who worked on analyzing data from the SpeX spectrograph. Guillaume is now a Senior Engineer at Qualcomm

Andrew Davis was an undergraduate researcher from Morehouse College who participated in the UCSD-Morehouse-Spelman Bridge Program. Andrew developed a web interface for the SPLAT package. He is now an engineer and software developer.

Jessica Birky was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who analyzed APOGEE spectra of low-temperature dwarfs using Machine Learning methods. Jessica is now a graduate student at the University of Washington

Elizabeth Moreno Hilario was an undergraduate researcher from the University of Guanajuanto, who worked on resolved imaging and spectroscopy of low-mass stellar binaries. Elizabeth is now a graduate student at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Isabela Rodrigues was a visiting summer research student from Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro who applied sentiment analysis to student writing from a large Physics course.

Maitrayee Sahi is a science and math teacher at Garfield High School who did a summer research internship working on development of the SPLAT toolkit. Maitrayee earned her Masters in Physics at Delhi University in India and Masters in Space Science at Florida Tech.

Tomoki Tamiya was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who contributed to the development of the SPLAT toolkit. Tomokit is now a software engineer at Google.

Adrian Suarez was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who investigated brown dwarf binary systems. Adrian is now a Data Professional in the San Diego region.

Gretel Mercado was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who studied brown dwarf companions to bright stars, and helped organize the CUWIP conference at UCSD in 2016

Michael Lopez was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who conducted Physics Education research on a flipped classroom model and helped develop the SPLAT toolkit. Michael earned his Masters in Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. Ivanna Escala was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who worked on index-based methods of characterizing brown dwarf spectra. She earned her PhD in Astronomy at Caltech and is now a Carnegie-Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow.

Dr. Guido Roberts-Borsani was a visiting undergraduate researcher from the University of Kent who worked on analyzing near-infrared spectra of ultracool dwarfs. Guido earned his PhD at University of College London and is now a SNSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Geneva

Dr. Caleb Choban was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who contributed to the development of the SPLAT toolkit. Caleb earned his PhD in Physics at UCSD and is now a Sullivan Prize Postdoctoral Fellow in Astronomy at Indiana University Bloomington

Dianna Cowern aka The Physics Girl was an outreach coordinator for the Cool Star Lab and helped create the Beach Physics program. After winning the "Flame Challenge" to explain color, Dianna has gone on to be a super-famous science communicator!

Dr. Yuhui Jin was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who worked to develop the SPLAT toolkit. Yuhui earned her PhD in Mathematics at Caltech.

Dr. Miriam Aberasturi was a visiting graduate student at UCSD who studied the binary properties of brown dwarfs with HST. Miriam earned her PhD in Astrophysics at the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid, Spain, and is now a Science Operations engineer at ESA Madrid 

Dr. Aishwarya Iyer was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who analyzed the infrared variability of the young low-mas binary TWA 30AB. Aishwarya earned her PhD in Astronomy at ASU, and is now a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Melisa Tallis was an undergraduate researcher and Dynes Scholar at UCSD who worked to develop the SPLAT toolkit. Melisa is now a data engineer at Falco

Natasha Banchik was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who worked on stellar spectra and the Beach Physics project. Natasha is now a Physics Teacher in San Diego Unified

Jason Morpeth was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who worked on the SPLAT toolkit. Jason is now a data analyst at HP

Luis Gonzalez-Marin was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD. 

Ian Winchester was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD. He is now a chemical analyst at Anresco Laboratories.

Harish Khandrika was a post-bacculeaureate researcher at UCSD who studied infrared variability of L and T dwarfs with Lick. Harish earned his Masters in Astronomy at UCSD and is now a Senior Research and Instrumentation Analyst at Space Telescope Science Institute 

Dr. Sarah Logsdon was an undergraduate Physics major at UCSD who worked on optical spectroscopy of low temperature stars. She earned her PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics at UCLA and is now an instrument scientist at NSF's NOIRLab.

Dr. Amelia Christensen was an undergraduate researcher at UCSD who studied variable stars in the Catalina Sky Survey through the Faculty Mentor Program. She earned her PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis

Christopher Luk was an undergraduate research student at UCSD who investigated Keck/NIRSPEC spectra of brown dwarfs. He is now a Chief Engineer at Raytheon.

Nathan Schram was a CTBP DIscovery Research Intern from Palomar College

Sarah Garcia was an undergraduate research student at UCSD who studied Spitzer photometry of cool stars.

Salvador Gutierrez was an undergraduate researcher and McNair scholar at UCSD. He is now a senior hardward design engineer at Intel.

Dr. Kellas Cameron was an undergraduate researcher at MIT. He earned his PhD in Operations and Technology Management from Boston University, and is now a professor at U. South Florida in the College of Business

Dr. Constantinos Melachrinos was an undergraduate researcher at MIT investigating cool star spectra. He earned his PhD in Physics at U. Chicago and is now a researcher at the EU Agency for Asylum.

Dr. Sebastian Pineda was an undergraduate researcher at MIT who investigated the activity and spatial distribution of M dwarfs from SDSS. He earned his PhD in Astrophysics at Caltech and is now a research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder

Clara Bennett was an undergraduate researcher at MIT. She is now a software engineer.

Kelly Kilts was an undergraduate researcher at MIT. She is now a Physics and Astronomy teacher in Lexington, MA

Prof. Emily Levesque was an undergraduate research at MIT who studied giant stars. Emily earned her PhD in Astronomy at U. Hawaii and is now a Professor of Astronomy at U. Washington, and recipient of numerous awards!

Charae Tongg was high school student working on Astrofacts! through Radiopio in Paia, Maui. Charae earned her BS in Computer Science and is now a research engineer at Spotify.