Inspiring Excellence: A Mentorship Journey in Astronomy

Professors Beth Klein & Ben Zuckerman

Recently, Astronomy Professor Ben Zuckerman and Assistant Research Astronomer Beth Klein led an informal research group consisting of four undergraduate students and two graduate students.  Our purpose was to mentor undergraduates who came to us looking to gain research experience. 

Happily, we were able to engage them all in studies of current interest in astronomy.  Two of the undergraduates became first authors on published papers, and all four were accepted into PhD programs in astronomy: Lou Baya Ould Ruis (Boston Univ), Kyle Davis (UCSC), Swetha Sankar (Johns Hopkins),  and Ted Johnson (Univ of Nevada). EPSS graduate student Alexandra Doyle obtained her PhD degree (advised by EPSS professor Edward Young), and Astronomy graduate student Isabella Trierweiler (advised by Professor Young) is expected to obtain her PhD degree in June 2024.

Even though our little group is now spread out across the United States of America, we make it a point to meet occasionally via Zoom to keep up to date on what everyone is doing and how their studies and research are going. The accompanying photo was taken during our September 2023 meetup.