Dr. Ilsa Cooke
GOTHAM, including work from UBC Astrochem Lab members, recently published Centimeter-Wave Rotational Spectroscopy of Ethynylbenzonitriles: Structural Analysis and Astronomical Search in The Journal of Physical Chemistry A. Read more here!
Legacy data from the GOTHAM spectral line survey of TMC-1 has recently been made public. More than 1 400 hours of observational data on the Green Bank Telescope is now available to the global scientific community, facilitating exciting new opportunities for collaboration and cross-disciplinary discoveries. Read more about the release here!
Congratulations to Elsa for passing her comprehensive exam and being admitted to candidacy! As is tradition, photo evidence of studying in the wild is attached.
Haley is joining the group as a postdoctoral fellow this September. In collaboration with Dr. Geoff Pleiss from the Statistics Department at UBC, she will be studying the use of foundation models to explore the chemical space of astrochemical reactions and their processes. Welcome Haley!
Maddox is an undergraduate physics student who is joining us this year for a CHEM 448: Directed Studies research project. He will be working on simulations of high-energy ion impacts on icy troilite. Welcome Maddox!
This Spring, the UBC Astrochemistry Lab launched an outreach program aimed at local high school students. Templeton Secondary student Eryn Grahn worked with our outreach coordinator to build and test a low-cost radio telescope, and was able to detect atomic hydrogen signatures from the galactic arms of the Milky Way. Eryn chose to base her final capstone project on this telescope, and was chosen by her teachers to present her findings at Temp Talks, an annual showcase of STEM related projects at her high school.
Through this project, Eryn displayed an exceptional attention to detail and science communication skills, something that will serve her well as she explores her interest in astrophysics. We wish Eryn luck in her future endeavours!
Some of our research was recently highlighted by UBC Science. Read more in the article here!
Nyx is an undergraduate researcher joining us this summer, who has been awarded an Undergraduate Student Research Award by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Nyx will be working on a research project using satellite data to probe the chemistry in forest fire smoke. Specifically, they will be modeling the dispersion and evolution of glyoxal and formaldehyde in BC wildfire plumes. Congratulations and welcome to Nyx!
Arieh has been awarded an Undergraduate Student Research Award by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for this summer. They will be continuing their work on building a new system at TRIUMF to investigate sulfur reservoirs in the interstellar medium. Congratulations Arieh!
Matteo is a visiting Physics PhD student from the University of Trento in Italy. He mainly focuses on studying gas-phase ion-molecule reaction processes involving beyond-the-second-row elements in the interstellar medium such as silicon, sulfur, and phosphorus. Starting in April, he will be working with our group and the Momose group to further investigate sulfur chemistry in the ISM. Welcome Matteo!
