We had approximately 477 applications from across the country for the 15 spots in our 2023 CIERA REU program! The students did a fantastic job this summer, and we were all thankful to be together in person at CIERA.
Below you will find information about these very talented students who spent the 2023 summer in Evanston with us. Please click on each student’s name to visit their research website, which they each developed during their REU to present their research projects.
Students listed in alphabetical order by last name.
Sebastian Banaszak
University of Wisconsin – Madison (Astronomy, Physics, Actuarial Science), Junior
Advisor: Caitlin Witt & Adam Miller
Project: Quasars with Periodic Variability: Bayesian Search for Supermassive Black Holes
Mars Bell
Illinois Institute of Technology (Astronomy), Sophomore
Advisor: Charlie Kilpatrick & Wen-fai Fong
Project: Type II Supernovae and Their Binary Companion Stars
Woodkensia Charles
Haverford College (Physics), Junior
Advisor: André de Gouvêa
Project: Time-Invariance Violation of Neutrino Oscillations
Elizabeth Cogan
Illinois Institute of Technology (Astronomy), Junior
Advisor: Elvira Mulyukova
Project: Habitable, Stable Climates with Different Tectonic Regimes
Vishnu Gade
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Physics), Freshman
Advisor: Vishal Baibhav & Vicky Kalogera
Project: Efficiently Exploring Rare Binaries with Adaptive Importance Sampling
Owen Gonzales
Welseyan University (Astronomy, Physics), Junior
Advisor: Claude-André Faucher-Giguère
Project: Building and Characterizing a Comprehensive Library of High-z Star Formation Histories
Juan Guerrero
Vassar College (Astronomy), Senior
Advisors: Jason Wang
Project: Worlds Apart: Characterizing the Orbit of Sub-Stellar Object GQ Lup B
Dean Kousiounelos
Lake Forest College (Physics, Studio Art), Sophomore
Advisors: Seth Gossage & Vicky Kalogera
Project: Data Visualization Aids in Understanding the Stellar Evolution of Binary Stars
Anurathi Madasi
Loyola University Chicago (Physics, Math), Sophomore
Advisor: Aaron Geller & Anna Childs
Project: Searching for Tidal Tails in the Open Cluster M35
Amelia Marengo
Illinois Institute of Technology (Astronomy, Physics), Sophomore
Advisor: Aaron Geller & Anna Childs
Project: Exotic Stars in N-Body Models
Rujuta Purohit
Dartmouth College (Astronomy, Physics), Junior
Advisor: Giacomo Fragione & Fred Rasio
Project: Binary Black Hole Mergers in Clusters with Stellar Runaway
Jacob Schimp
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Physics), Junior
Advisor: Alvin Bayliss
Project: Nonlinear Crowding Effects in Cyclically Competing Ecological Communities
Emma VanderKooi
Wheaton College (Physics), Sophomore
Advisor: Hooman Mohseni
Project: Designing A Silicon Nitride Ring Resonator to Simulate Nonlinear Optical Behavior
Justyce Watson
Lewis University (Physics), Junior
Advisor: Aaron Geller & Anna Childs
Project: Ages of Normal and Blue Lurker Stars in Open Cluster M67
Guangyi Zhang
Reed College (Physics), Junior
Advisor: Sharan Banagiri & Vicky Kalogera
Project: Non-parametric methods to map the stochastic gravitational-wave spectrum with LISA
