Student Highlights: Kaycee Conder
— MEET KAYCEE —
Class: Senior
Major: Astronomy & Astrophysics
Kaycee Conder is currently a senior at the University of Wyoming, double majoring in both astronomy & astrophysics and physics. A lifelong Wyomingite, having been raised in Lander, WY, she has always been able to see the stars from her backyard, sparking her interest in astronomy at an early age. But what really sold her on the wonders of astrophysics was her trip to UW’s annual Women in STEM Conference, an event where middle and high school girls participate in numerous activities meant to invigorate interest in STEM fields.
One of the events Kaycee participated in during the conference was a “Tour of the Universe” in the Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium. It was here that she was fascinated by the wonders of the cosmos, and it was here that she decided where her future career would lie. She now works at that same planetarium as a university student. Her favorite program to present is Aurorae: Dancing Lights. In the coming years, she hopes to be accepted into graduate school to study the aurorae and attain her PhD.
— KAYCEE’S RESEARCH —
Kaycee’s current research delves into the discovery and characterization of buried star clusters within nearby spiral galaxies. The clusters that she is working to identify are not like the clusters that you may see in the sky on a clear night, like the Pleiades (The Seven Sisters). Rather, these clusters are not visible to even the largest eye, as they are obscured in the optical and ultraviolet (UV) part of the electromagnetic spectrum by dust. Therefore, to find star clusters buried in this dust, we need to look through a telescope that examines a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum, specifically the infrared.
The long wavelength of infrared light allows us to both peer through dust obscurations and highlight previously ‘invisible’ portions of galaxies where dust itself emits light. Therefore, to identify locations of buried star clusters, we can compare infrared and optical/UV images of galaxies. If there appears to be a point source visible in the infrared but not in the optical/UV, this suggests that the source is buried in a significant amount of dust, thus indicating the presence of a buried star cluster.
Kaycee is specifically comparing images between the infrared James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the optical/ultraviolet Hubble Space Telescope (HST), flagging these locations where a point source is visible in the infrared with JWST, but not visible in the optical/UV with HST. She is now utilizing a multitude of methods to characterize these clusters by their age, mass, and extinctions, examining the distributions of these properties from galaxy to galaxy.
This fascinating research is only possible thanks to the help of her advisor Dr. Daniel Dale, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) team, and of course the Wyoming NASA Space Grant.
ABOUT STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS
Every year, we award fellowships to graduate and undergraduate students attending the University of Wyoming or Wyoming’s community colleges in order to provide them with funding to engage in real-world research opportunities. Occasionally, we feature one of these students and their research on this blog. For more information about our student fellowships, visit our College Programs page.