Introduction

I'm a third-year Ph.D. student working with Prof. Decker French at UIUC. I study Changing-Look AGN (CL-AGN), a type of AGN which changes Seyfert types on month-to-year timescales. These objects have been linked to galaxy quenching, or the shutdown of star formation in galaxies.

A white woman with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes.

Publications

Fading AGN in Post-Starburst Galaxies K. Decker French, Nicholas Earl, Annemarie B. Novack, Bhavya Pardasani, Vismaya R. Pillai, Akshat Tripathi, Margaret E. Verrico The Astrophysical Journal, 2023

Merger Signatures are Common, but not Universal, in Massive, Recently-Quenched Galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 Margaret Verrico, David J. Setton, Rachel Bezanson, Jenny E. Greene, Katherine A. Suess, Andy D. Goulding, Justin S. Spilker, Mariska Kriek, Robert Feldmann, Desika Narayanan, Vincenzo Donofrio, Gourav Khullar The Astrophysical Journal, 2023.

Star Formation Suppression by Tidal Removal of Cold Molecular Gas from an Intermediate-Redshift Massive Post-Starburst Galaxy Justin S. Spilker, Katherine A. Suess, David J. Setton, Rachel Bezanson, Robert Feldmann, Jenny E. Greene, Mariska Kriek, Sidney Lower, Desika Narayanan, Margaret Verrico The Astrophysical Journal, 2022.

The Origin and Evolution of Compact Massive z∼0.7 Post-Starburst Galaxies in the SQuIGGLE Survey David J. Setton, Margaret Verrico, Rachel Bezanson, Jenny E. Greene, Katherine A. Suess, Robert Feldmann, Andy D. Goulding, Khalil Hall-Hooper, Erin Kado-Fong, Mariska Kriek, Desika Narayanan, Justin S. Spilker The Astrophysical Journal, 2022.

SQuIGGLE: Studying Quenching in Intermediate-z Galaxies— Gas, AnguLar Momentum, and Evolution Katherine A. Suess, Mariska Kriek, Rachel Bezanson, Jenny E. Greene, David Setton, Justin S. Spilker, Robert Feldmann, Andy D. Goulding, Benjamin D. Johnson, Joel Leja, Desika Narayanan, Khalil Hall-Hooper, Qiana Hunt, Sidney Lower, and Margaret Verrico The Astrophysical Journal, 2021.

Now you see it, now you don't: Star formation truncation precedes the loss of molecular gas by ~100 Myr in massive post-starburst galaxies at z~0.6 Rachel Bezanson, Justin S. Spilker, Katherine A. Suess, David J. Setton, Robert Feldmann, Jenny E. Greene, Mariska Kriek, Desika Narayanan, and Margaret Verrico The Astrophysical Journal, 2021.

Outreach

Summer Camp

I ran the UIUC High School Girls' Astronomy Summer Camp in June 2023 and July 2024. We work with local high schoolers on a variety of astronomy-related projects, including night observing, spectroscopy, and a coding exercise. For 2024, we have expanded the summer camp to a full week, developed a week-long coding project to introduce students to Python programming, and recruited nearly double the campers we had in 2023. The summer camp website can be found here.

Science Olympiad

In 2023 and 2024, I ran the regional and state Solar System B events for Illinois Science Olympiad. I wrote the exam for the regional-level competition at Parkland College. I ran the event for the state-level competition at UIUC. I plan to continue participating in Science Olympiad events in spring 2025.

Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program

In 2023-2024, I was a graduate student mentor for UIUC's Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, or URAP. URAP pairs undergraduates with no prior research experience with graduate student research mentors. I received mentorship training and mentored an undergraduate student through a one-semester project. My mentee learned the Python programming language and gained a background in galaxy evolution and AGN studies.

Society for Equity in Astronomy

In academic year 2023-2024, I was co-chair of SEA, the Society for Equity in Astronomy at UIUC. SEA provides several services to undergraduates and grad students at UIUC, including a mentor-mentee program, information on research funding and opportunities, study breaks, and our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tea with visiting colloquium speakers. In 2024, in addition to our usual programming, we hosted panels on applying to graduate schools and summer research opportunities for our undergraduates. You can learn more about SEA at our website. I have also participated in the SEA undergraduate mentoring program since the fall of 2022. I currently mentor two undergraduate students in the astronomy program at UIUC. This program aims to guide underrepresented students in astronomy through their degrees and into successful careers.

CV

For more information on my publications, talks, teaching experience, and research, please see my professional CV linked below.