Larom Segev awarded 2025 LLNL-AIP Leadership Scholarship

About the Recipient

Zone and Chapter: Harvard College, Zone 1

I am a rising senior studying astrophysics and applied physics at Harvard College, interested in early universe cosmology. As the SPS Associate Zone Councilor for the Northeast, I represented the student body during meetings, organized collaborations between chapters, and helped organize zone meetings. As president and prior observatory manager for our astronomy club STAHR, I lead observatory nights, help organize dark-sky trips, manage telescope maintenance, and teach classes. As a part of our CubeSat team, I am designing and testing shape-memory alloy actuators scheduled for NASA launch 2025. During the summers, I characterized exoplanet atmospheres at NASA GSFC, coded for the new cloud-based data platform at Space Telescope Science Institute, and analyzed interstellar shock ridges causing star formation at Cosmic Origins Initiative, and this summer will be working on the FPGA-based data acquisition system and building the receiver chain for the BREAD experiment, which will expand the frequency range to 8 GHz for enhanced axion dark matter detection. For the past few years, I’ve been working on image quality optimization for Rubin Observatory commissioning at my university. I am planning to pursue a PhD and would like to work for a research institute after. Outside of physics, I enjoy crafting, reading, baking, and exploring new places.