Tansu Daylan

Michael Coughlin from U Minnesota (and my PhD cohort buddy from a decade ago) visited us at WashU Physics this week for a colloquium on gravitational wave astronomy and multimessenger astrophysics. And in perfect timing, Rubin alerts had just gone live the night before!

A new NSF REU program is starting this summer at WashU Physics. I will mentor a student to work on the detection and characterization of strong lenses in Roman and Rubin data. If you have an undergraduate interested in applying (or if you are that student), please let me know.

We hosted our prospective graduate students on campus yesterday for the WashU Physics Graduate Open House. At the same time, Sanaea Rose from Northwestern University was visiting us for the WUCAP Seminar and gave an excellent talk on stellar collisions near the galactic center.

Helen Quinn from Stanford visited us for this year’s WashU Physics Feenberg Lecture and gave an inspiring talk on her path to the Peccei–Quinn symmetry with Roberto. The lecture honors Eugene Feenberg whose legacy still shapes our department and many-body nuclear theory today.

We’ve just sent our graduate admission offers for Fall 2026. Congrats to our truly impressive cohort of prospective graduate students!

And a highlight announcement from the meeting: Henric Krawczynski, our Department Chair and Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor in Physics at WashU, will receive the Bruno Rossi Prize at the next winter meeting. Congratulations, Henric!

An amazing week at AAS 247. Seven AstroMusers (@astromusers.bsky.social) members (grad students Bryce, Aysu, Nathan, and Jackie, postdocs Ekrem and Zifan, and undergrad Aavik) and I, as well as faculty colleagues Manel and Mike from WashU Physics, were in Phoenix to catch up with colleagues.

Congrats, Mini!!

Graphic labeled, Simulations of Gravitationally Lensed Galaxies in a Roman Space Telescope Image, shows a simulated Roman Space Telescope image within the detectors of its Wide Field Instrument at center as a 3-by-6 array of squares. Within each square are a range of white pinpoints against a black background, some slightly larger than others, but all tiny. There are four pullouts from the main image, shown as four boxes, two in a column at left and two at right. Each pullout shows a magnified view of the tiny dot it points to. All four pullouts show simulated gravitational lenses, which look like a thick white dot at center surrounded by fuzzy, slightly incomplete circles that are semi-transparent.

#NASARoman will soon make particular types of gravitational lenses far more common, pinpointing over 160,000 of them. (To date, we only know of hundreds.) A team plans to study these objects to refine our studies of dark matter: bit.ly/3SyNJDy 🔭 🧪 ☄️

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2025!

I look forward to 2025 as AstroMusers is ramping up to publish new exciting papers. St. Louis will also host several major gatherings across physics, astronomy, and computer science: the AAPT Winter Meeting, AAS HEAD22, SC25, and MCSS 50th Anniversary Symposium at WashU.

AstroMusers started organizing the Astronomy on Tap St. Louis with the first two events on October 30 and December 11, gathering astronomy enthusiasts together from across the metro area.

In the Fall, I taught a new course, the Gateway Expeditions into Exoplanets, which was essentially a non-calculus version of Planets and Life in the Universe and served as the first semester of a new introductory astrophysics Ampersand Program for WashU first-year undergrads.

Here are some more 2024 reflections and news from AstroMusers: sites.wustl.edu/astromusers/...

In 2024, AstroMusers got new grants and published new papers. My grad student Bryce became a NASA FINESST Fellow. I received an RCSA Scialog Fellowship. AXIS was selected by NASA for phase A. Postdocs Chris (Jaynes Fellow) and Ekrem (MCSS Fellow) joined us.

On April 8, 2024, our host star and natural satellite aligned, leading to a path of totality passing just ~100 miles south of St. Louis. Before the eclipse, several faculty colleagues and I engaged with the public via our Saturday Science Lecture Series at WashU Physics.

Bendeki emeğin çok büyük sevgili anneanne. Çocukluk anımlarım senin özverin ve sevginle dolu. Şimdi ise elimden tek gelen seni minnetle anmak. Hayatıma kattığın her şey için teşekkür ederim. Huzur içinde uyu.

It’s challenging to label an entire year as good or bad. But 2024 surely had its bitter side. In March, I lost my dear grandma. My childhood memories are full of her love and compassion. Her loss was heavy and pushed me into a deep state of grief that continues to this day.

I realized it’s been a while since I had nonnegligible interaction with social media. Life has lately been… fast-paced beyond description, to say the least. Anyways, taking a breath during the winter holidays, here are some reflections before I let go of 2024.

My graduate students Nathan and Bryce passed their grueling PhD quals this week.

May the Fourth be with you.

We gathered under totality today while trying to process the amazement of having witnessed something so wonderful...

My faculty colleagues Rita Parai, Paul Byrne, Ryan Ogliore, and Mike Krawczynski and I will be participating in the eclipse viewing event at the Bollinger Mill organized by the Missouri State Parks. We’ll give short talks and offer demos.

The 2017 eclipse was an excellent excuse for me to travel from Boston to Idaho for the HEAD meeting. I am closer to totality this time as the St. Louis region is getting its second total eclipse in less than a decade. The forecast looks iffy, so fingers crossed for clear skies!

So excited for tomorrow and ready to enjoy this unique connection with our host star and natural satellite. Considering the solar eclipses I was fortunate to witness (1999 and 2006 in Turkey, 2017 in the US), it feels like eclipses chapterize our lives in interesting ways.

On the last day, we got to wander the visitor complex. What a rare occasion it was to receive exciting news from JWST Cycle 3 proposal selections *while* watching the launch of a batch of Starlink satellites from Banana Creek? It felt great!

I presented ExoCore, the open science curriculum my team AstroMusers, @astromusers.bsky.social, is developing for the exoplanet research community. ExoCore will encourage open-science practices, widen and democratize participation in exoplanet research, and facilitate discoveries in the field.

This week, four of our graduate students and I participated in the NASA TOPS Symposium at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s been a memorable week celebrating the JWST Cycle 3 selections, chasing alligators, watching a live rocket launch, and discussing open science.

Last shout-out -- I'm hiring! Check out the postdoctoral job ad on the AAS register. Please reach out if you have questions. #aas243 #xrism

jobregister.aas.org/ad/26acafd6

My new group @astromusers.bsky.social returned from #AAS243 with awesome ideas, building great memories with old and new friends. 2024 will be an exciting year. Thanks for all the stimulating exchange.

Group member Bryce Wedig just presented our pipeline to simulate strong lens images using the Wide-Field Instrument on the upcoming Roman Space Telescope (#AAS243 presentation 439.05).