#WSGCStudentSpotlight
Senior
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Major: Astrophysics
Second Major: Spanish
Sarah Martens is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a 2016 Undergraduate Research Fellowship Award. She has been selected for this week’s #WSGCStudentSpotlight!
Sarah is an ambitious student and an aspiring scientist. She is looking forward to continuing exciting projects in astronomy and hopes for a career with NASA after graduation! Sarah received funding from the WSGC for her research project this past summer. Her project aimed to analyze optical spectroscopy for possible companions to galaxy J100054.8. The research would allow further description of the nature of the neutral hydrogen (HI) detection and the potential influence of the large dark matter halo on the possible group of galaxies.
In addition to optical spectroscopy, Sarah calculated optical redshifts to check that the HI detection is from a galaxy and not another source. Sarah and her advisor, Eric Wilcots, also combined galaxies in the observations to avoid sensitivity limits. By combining multiple methods, they could form a broader analysis of high redshift detection in the CHILES field.
Congratulations Sarah and keep up the incredible work!
