sometimes when shes alone in an observatory surrounded by computer screens and terabytes of data in some remote control room peering deep into the mysterious black cosmos taylor hutchison 22 likes to take a moment to remind herself just how fortunate she is its hard to blame hutchison a graduate student in the texas a&m university astronomy program for being a little sentimental about it after all its not everyone who can say theyre making a career out of probing some of the earliest known galactic formations i love my job; its a dream come true hutchison said i get to travel the world and go to these amazing telescopes to take data i get to do this as a job and get paid for it i feel like i should be paying them instead because its such a fantastic experience and what ive always dreamed of doing in the beginning an avid proponent of science communication and citizen science hutchison regularly posts pictures of her travels including this breathtaking view from her recent trip to cerro tololo inter-american observatory (ctio) in chile on her instagram account i feel most like an astronomer when i travel around the world using some of the worlds best telescopes (credit: taylor hutchison) as a member of texas a&m astronomer casey papovichs research group within the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy focusing on areas of galaxy formation and observational cosmology hutchison is specifically analyzing the distinguishing features of ancient galaxies and how they developed in order to better understand how the universe appeared in its early existence because galaxy evolution is still such a relatively new field hutchison says there are still many questions to be answered anything you find out about these galaxies makes a high impact because we just know next to nothing about them she said its a really exciting field and its difficult but rewarding work to put it into perspective the galaxies hutchison investigates were formed only about a billion years after the big bang explosively expanded the universe into existence nearly 14 billion years ago and are so distant or old that their light travels billions of years before ever reaching earth this means that when hutchison observes these galaxies she is seeing them not as they are now but as they were long ago this is accomplished using near-infrared spectroscopy a technique in which the light emitted from a distant object is divided into a spectrum to better analyze its corresponding wavelengths hutchison then can determine important details about remote galaxies such as the temperature mass chemical composition and distribution of its stars as these galaxies move away from us and we move away from them their light is actually being stretched hutchison said its ultraviolet light thats been stretched so much that its only visible in the near-infrared spectroscopy is a way to characterize that have questions will travel hutchison posing with the 65-meter multiple mirror telescope (mmt) at the smithsonians fred lawrence whipple observatory in arizona (credit: taylor hutchison) hutchison posing with the 65-meter multiple mirror telescope (mmt) at the smithsonians fred lawrence whipple observatory in arizona (credit: taylor hutchison) hutchison originally came to texas a&m in 2016 as the recipient of a four-year texas a&m graduate diversity fellowship and her work since has earned her a 2018 national science foundation graduate research fellowship the first awarded to a texas a&m astronomy student in program history during the past two years she has been making regular visits to the wm keck observatory in hawaii to acquire data for one of her current projects to learn about the physical conditions of stars in early galaxies unlike newer stars that contain many heavy elements stars formed soon after the big bang were made up of only hydrogen and helium understanding the nature of these pristine stars could lead to important clues about the formation of subsequent generations of stars what taylor has been doing is fantastic papovich said shes looking at these galaxies with one of the largest telescopes but theyre still very faint its hard to imagine but the things taylor is looking at are fainter than the night sky its extremely hard to do what she does the control room for keck i contrary to most experiences observing at telescopes astronomers using one of the two keck telescopes dont go up to the mountaintop to do so they observe at the keck headquarters in waimea hawaii its a little surreal that i observe in a telescope control room where theres a starbucks down the road (credit: taylor hutchison) despite the long hours consumed by her research hutchison still manages to find time for another passion that she considers equally important – outreach she is a co-founder of the society for the underrepresented in physics and astronomy (supa) at texas a&m established in 2016 supa invites all students faculty and staff in the department of physics and astronomy to participate in regular discussions aimed at addressing unique challenges faced by women and underrepresented groups in general hutchison was honored for her efforts to conceptualize and bring the group to fruition with a 2018 college of science leadership in equity and diversity (lead) award which recognizes faculty staff and postdoctoral research associates who have displayed commitment to enhancing the colleges environment of mutual respect and diversity the main goal of supa is to provide a place of community for everyone in the physics and astronomy department who is underrepresented and also allies to be able to come together and talk about the issues that they face and any kind of strategies that we can use to combat these problems hutchison said not only are we succeeding in our research were also succeeding as healthy individuals in promoting each other texas a&m is fantastic for that earlier this month hutchison and a handful of colleagues across the globe debuted a new project #uniquescientists that seeks to share and celebrate diversity in science while also encouraging and inspiring the next generation of scientists the group amassed more than 4 000 followers on twitter in less than two weeks and is partnering with genius lab gear to offer stickers t-shirts and tank tops as a fundraiser to support its not-for-profit scientific diversity inspired cause star-struck for hutchison passion and science simply go hand in hand and have ever since her childhood she originally had aspirations of becoming a marine biologist but turned her focus to the stars as an undergraduate student at southwestern university where she discovered her calling as an astronomer by befriending the schools only astrophysicist and accepting an invitation to assist him with research on supermassive black holes i got to use a telescope at that campus and for four years i got to do exactly what you always hear astronomers do she said i think thats when i figured out what i wanted to do – when i was able to be at a telescope taking data even now as a third-year graduate student with her masters of science in astronomy under her belt as of this may hutchison has never lost that itch to explore the sky through the lens of a telescope whenever i go observing is when i feel most like an astronomer she said # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represented annual expenditures of more than $922 million in fiscal year 2018 texas a&m ranked in the top 20 of the national science foundations higher education research and development survey (2017) based on expenditures of more than $9054 million in fiscal year 2017 texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://researchtamuedu/ -atm- contact: chris jarvis (979) 845-7246 or cjarvis@sciencetamuedu; taylor hutchison (979) 845-7778 or aibhleog@tamuedu or or dr casey papovich (979) 862-2704 or papovich@physicstamuedu the post texas a&m nsf graduate research fellow taylor hutchison finds focus in studying universes earliest stars and sharing passion for science appeared first on college of science share: