Theron W. Carmichael

"Stay hydrated and always wear space-themed clothing."

Affiliation: Harvard University

Areas of Scientific Interest: My research focuses on the detection and characterization of transiting brown dwarfs. These are objects that have masses between 13 and 80 times the mass of Jupiter; they are typically found in short-period orbits around their host stars. The goal of this work is to grow the known population of transiting brown dwarfs and obtain precise measurements of each new transiting brown dwarf's mass and radius so that they can serve as benchmarks to substellar evolutionary models. Ultimately this will help us piece together the puzzle of brown dwarf formation mechanisms and provide a more comprehensive understanding of these objects that bridge planets and stars.

Accomplishments:

• NSF GRFP Fellow, 2017–2020
• Mentor and instructor for the Banneker Institute, 2016–2020
• Volunteer telescope operator for the Harvard Observing Project, 2016–2020
• Chicago Marathon 2018 finisher
• Boston Marathon 2019 finisher