Current MIT Pappalardo Fellows with an MKI Affiliation

Kevin Burdge, Pappalardo Fellow in Physics: 2021-2024
Kevin Burdge’s interests lie in discovering and characterizing astrophysical sources of both gravitational and electromagnetic radiation, especially those detectable by the upcoming space-based gravitational wave detector, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). These sources are Galactic binary systems with orbital periods of less than an hour, and consist of two compact objects–generally a white dwarf with either a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole companion. LISA is expected to detect tens of thousands of such binaries within the Milky Way, and Burdge’s work focuses on leveraging data from current and upcoming wide-field optical surveys such as the Zwicky Transient Facility, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the Vera Rubin Observatory to discover and precisely constrain the physical parameters of these objects using the photons they emit. So far, Burdge has doubled the number of known examples of LISA-detectable binaries in the span of two years using the Zwicky Transient Facility, including the two shortest orbital period eclipsing binary systems known, and he has measured general relativistic orbital decay in several of these systems.Short period binaries hosting two compact objects can be used to perform novel tests of General Relativity, precisely constrain the equation of state of objects such as white dwarfs, and study the processes of binary evolution which produce these systems. Many of these binaries are double white dwarf pairs predicted to produce a Type Ia supernova upon merger, a type of explosion which allowed for the measurement of the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Juliana García-Mejía, Pappalardo Fellow in Physics: 2023-2026
Juliana García-Mejía is broadly interested in developing novel astronomical instrumentation to enable the study of exoplanets, their atmospheres, and their low mass stellar hosts. She is the PI of The Tierras Observatory, a new 1.3-m ultra-precise fully-automated photometer located atop Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. Having spent her entire Ph.D. building Tierras, she is currently focused on using the facility to uncover temperate terrestrial planets, search for Moons around exoplanets, and study their low mass stellar hosts. Juliana is also pursuing the design of a high throughput, extremely-high resolution pathfinder spectrograph to enable narrow-wavelength atmospheric structure and velocity dynamic studies of exoplanets, and to expand cosmochronological and magnetic field studies of stars of varied spectral types. In the future, this instrument could enable the detection of molecular oxygen in a terrestrial exoplanet atmosphere.

Future MIT Pappalardo Fellows with an MKI Affiliation
Rohan Naidu, Pappalardo Fellow in Physics: 2025-2027

Past MIT Pappalardo Fellows with an MKI Affiliation
Nicholas Kern, Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2020-2023
Steven Villanueva, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2018-2021
Anna-Christina Eilers, Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2022-2024
Carl Rodriguez, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2016-2019
Robert Penna, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2013-2016
Meng Su, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2012-2015
Laura Lopez, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2011-2014
Simona Vegetti, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2010-2013
Mustafa Amin, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2008-2011
James Battat, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2008-2011
Nitya Kallivayalil, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2007-2010
Paola Rebusco, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2007-2010
David Kaplan, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2004-2007
Benjamin Lane, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2003-2006
Robert Simcoe, MIT Pappalardo Fellow in Physics 2003-2006
Katherine Rawlins, MIT Pappalardo Fellow 2003-2005