Conversations with Astronomy Graduate Students

When considering grad school, talking to current grad students may be one of the most important steps you can take. Conferences like the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meetings bring together grad students from across the country, so they are great opportunities to get firsthand accounts of the experience. After sending off my grad school applications and trying not to think too much about when I would hear back, I attended the 243rd AAS meeting. While there I interviewed graduate students about why they chose to attend grad school and their plans. Here are some of the insights they shared with me.

Dashon Jones, Rice University

Dashon Jones was in his first year of grad school when I talked to him. His advice to undergraduates is to get involved in research. When looking for opportunities, he recommends reaching out to professors whose work interests you. When Jones did this, he made sure to tell them he had read their papers and was interested in their specific research. “If you’re afraid to send an email, if you’re scared they’re going to reject you—the worst they can tell you is no,” he said. But they might say yes. “If you reach out to people, if you show initiative, [many are] more than willing to take you.”

Maria Regina Apodaca Moreno, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

At the conference, Maria Regina Apodaca Moreno presented her work with the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus; she studies cloud particle data retrieval. She told me that her current project stemmed from the question, If you could do anything, what would you do? Apodaca Moreno realized that she wanted to increase accessibility to space as well as reevaluate scientific assumptions. “I wanted to be asking the more controversial and daring questions... Is there a possibility of life on Venus? Is there something we’re overlooking?” She continued, “Just because we haven’t seen [it] doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Especially if the way we get to that conclusion is flawed.”

Kishore Petra, University of California, Berkeley

Kishore Petra is an international student who came to the United States from India. He studied exoplanets as an undergraduate but transitioned into gravitational potentials in graduate school. Petra now does spectropolarimetry of astrophysical transients such as supernovae. This was his first AAS meeting. Many conferences occur on the edge of university breaks, which he says can be difficult for international students who often travel home then. “I’ve always wanted to come to AAS [but] never got an opportunity,” he said. He really enjoyed the conference.

Benjamin Amend, Clemson University

Benjamin Amend studies galactic chemical evolution, nucleosynthesis, and compact binary star mergers. “Maybe my reasons for going to grad school were unconventional,” he told me when I asked why he went to graduate school. “I enjoyed doing research. I enjoyed looking into these unsolved problems in astronomy and astrophysics, [but the] main reason I went to grad school is because a doctorate is required for teaching.” He aims to teach at a big university and sees earning a PhD as the first step in accomplishing that goal.

Lawrence Machia, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Lawrence Machia is a graduate student working on the Argus Array, which is a large deep-sky survey instrument that will be built in North Carolina. Interestingly, Machia is also a Benedictine monk at St. Vincent Archabbey. He decided to attend graduate school so that he could teach physics at his home institution. He plans to work with undergraduates and involve them in his research.

Madeline Clyburn, Clemson University

Madeline Clyburn is a PhD candidate whose research predicts the “electromagnetic signatures from unequal-mass massive black hole binaries.” She’s doing this work in preparation for multimessenger gravitational wave detections, including by the space-based detector LISA. Clyburn originally planned to teach high school physics and double majored in physics and education. She described being pushed to apply to graduate programs by mentors who saw her potential and finding how much she enjoyed research, which she describes as “trying to solve problems within astrophysics that no one has ever tried to solve.”

To hear more about the AAS meeting from Marie Olivia Sykes, check out her piece “AAS 243: New Orleans Wrap-up” in the Spring 2024 issue of the SPS Observer at spsnational.org/the-sps-observer/issues/spring-2024 .