Peter Lott

I am a fourth-year graduate student in the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics at Georgia Tech, under Prof. Laura Cadonati. Originally from Huntsville, AL, I earned my Bachelor of Science from Howard University, minoring in Mathematics. Through Prof. Cadonati’s group, I am a member of the LIGO Collaboration, a ground-based observatory for gravitational waves. My main area of focus is gravitational wave emission from hyperbolic encounters between binary black holes. I also contributed to tests of General Relativity using model-independent techniques, the results of which I will be presenting at AAS.

Sara Negussie

My name is Sara Negussie and I'm a masters student in Astronomy at Wesleyan University. I'm excited to go to AAS for the first time! Since I'm planning on pursuing a PhD in Astronomy, I want to learn more about current research, gain skills from the workshops, and network with other astronomy graduate students and professors..

Andrea Bryant

Andrea received her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Astronomy from Emory University in 2015. In 2016 she began her journey towards a PhD in Physics at the University of Chicago as a Bridge student, where she continues now as a PhD Candidate. Andrea is interested in using seismology to learn more about the interior structure of icy moons with sub-surface oceans. Along her path to and through graduate school, Andrea has worked on a variety of research topics including neuroscience, geophysics, quantum experimental cosmology, the cosmic microwave background, and modeling exoplanet evolution. In 2020 she was selected as a Student Investigator for the NASA Dragonfly mission heading to Titan, and was a 2017 GEM Fellow. In her spare time, Andrea enjoys laughing, playing guitar, working out outdoors, and eating delicious food with wonderful people. Andrea is excited to present some of her icy moon seismology work at the upcoming AAS Conference! Thanks Black in Astro!

Olivia McAuley

Olivia McAuley is a Ph.D. candidate at Bryn Mawr College. Broadly speaking, her research with Prof. Kate Daniel is on the dynamical processes involved in the dissolution and radial migration of a star cluster in a barred Milky Way-like galaxy. She is exploring a novel dynamical model that could explain how the chemically anomalous, massive star cluster NGC 6791 could have migrated to its current location and survived for 10 Gyr. McAuley received a B.S. in physics with a concentration in astrophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2019, she participated in the International School of Space Science where she learned about astrometry using data from the Gaia survey. She enjoys sharing her love of astronomy by being involved in outreach opportunities.

Ronald Lopez

Hello! My name is Ronald Alexander Lopez and I am a graduate student in astronomy & astrophysics at UCLA. I developed a fascination with astronomy at a very young age, despite growing up in Los Angeles, where only the brightest objects can be seen. This was enough however, to drive my desire to get a Ph.D. long before I even knew what it was. I learned a lot about astronomy through documentaries, planetarium shows, and JPL open houses, where I was able to see all of the amazing science being done in our solar system. Today, I am still enthusiastic about the other planets in our solar system and even more enticed by the discovery of new worlds outside of our solar system. As a graduate student I get to work in the exoplanet realm, focusing on direct imaging and instrumentation. For AAS, I will present my research on the warped debris disk around HD 110058 using scattered light imaging with Gemini Planet Imager. In addition to research, I am very active in my department as a planetarium coordinator, astronomy graduate student representative, departmental DEI committee member, and graduate student DEI advisory board member to the dean of physical sciences. Outside of academia, I love to play sports, play chess, and I am a beginner pianist.