Mackenzie L Jones

As an observational astronomer, I study light. Light is a fast and massless wonder that knows no age. Astronomers pull back the curtains of time and try to capture as many of these fleeting photons as possible. They are our windows into the past.

I am currently a graduate student at Dartmouth pursuing a PhD in physics and astronomy, specializing in extragalactic astronomy. My research focuses on light collected from deep sky objects in the Bootes field. I analyze the spectra of these objects, determine their classification as either galaxies or quasars, and calculate accurate redshifts. Outside of research, teaching and outreach is very important to me. For the 2013-2014 school year I will be teaching science at a middle school as a part of the NSF GK-12 Fellowship.

My goal for the next few years is to grow my knowledge base of the key questions in extragalactic astronomy and expand my research to reflect the pursuit of their answers. I look forward to making professional connections across the world, and want to challenge myself to remain current on the leading computational methods in this field.