Students in the Astronomy Department have uncommon access to hands-on research projects using state of the art facilities that include the Williston Observatory. There are many opportunities for research in planetary science, astrophysics, and astrobiology: on campus, within the Five College Astronomy Department, and through summer programs at many other institutions such as the Applied Physics Lab and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Facilities in the Astronomy Department include an Astrophysics laboratory with Linux computers, Mössbauer Spectrometer, ChemLIBS Spectrometer, SuperLIBS Spectrometer, ASD Mineral Spectroradiometer, Bruker ATR Spectrometer, and BRAVO Raman Spectrometer. These facilities are available to interested students for inquiry-based projects, and are used in classes at the advanced level.
Astronomy students have a long record of presenting their research at national conferences, including the Division of Planetary Science, Lunar Planetary Conference, American Geophysical Union annual meeting, and American Astronomical Society. In addition, to these conference publications, Astronomy students are frequently co-authors on peer-reviewed publications in national and international journals.
Campus Voices
Abigail Tadlock ’23
she/her
Laura Congreve Hunter ’17
The Department of Astronomy helps students study and understand the nature of the universe and the various structures within it —galaxies, stars, planets, atoms— how they are formed and how they change.
