January 14, 2010
Sophomore is second author for research paper in major astronomy journal
New research led by UW scientists has shown clearly that two relatively nearby stars that normally are surrounded by disks have, at least once, seen those disks completely dissipate over a period of several years before they reformed from material spewing from the stars.
But that finding isn’t one that typically would capture much public attention. Here’s the real news: The second of six authors of the research paper, published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal, is just a sophomore, and his contributions were key to the work.
“I guess it’s a big deal, but I don’t really know,” said Zachary Draper, who grew up in Olympia before attending high school in Portland, Ore.
He came to the UW assuming he would take up aerospace engineering. Instead, he got involved in the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program, a collaboration of the Astronomy Department and the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity to recruit students from groups traditionally underrepresented in astronomy. They get one-on-one mentoring and hands-on research early in their UW careers.
“I got the opportunity to do research in my first quarter and I said, ‘This is what I want to do,'” said Draper, who is American Indian but does not hold tribal membership.
For the Astrophysical Journal paper, the researchers sorted through 15 years of detailed observations from two stars, 60 Cygnus about 1,200 light years from Earth and Pi Aquarii about 1,100 light years away. Draper dissected the data to look for signals that indicate how disks around the stars behave, which led to understanding how the disks changed over time. He also created an illustration showing what the researchers believe might have occurred with the stars.
“His contribution was a key aspect to our work,” said John Wisniewski, a UW postdoctoral researcher in astronomy who is Draper’s mentor.
Wisniewski is in the second year of a three-year National Science Foundation fellowship that is not just about research but also is intended to promote education and public outreach in astronomy and astrophysics with the idea of developing the next generation of faculty.
But getting students involved in research has a very practical side too.
“As you train and incorporate students in the work, it helps to get things done. There’s a lot of data there waiting to be analyzed,” Wisniewski said.
In this case, the work is also serving as the basis for proposed research that the National Science Foundation could fund to the tune of as much as $400,000.
Though he is in the early stages of his own career, and he hopes that his work will lead to a tenure-track position in astronomy, Wisniewski believes mentoring young students is an important part of what he does. He currently is mentor to eight students between the UW and the University of Toledo.
“I learn a lot from these guys because, in some respects, they know more than I do,” he said.
For his part in the current project, Draper had to learn two programming languages, Fortran and interactive data language. He had help on that front from Adam Kowalski, a UW graduate student in astronomy and a co-author on the paper (the other co-authors are Karen and Jon Bjorkman from the University of Toledo and Marilyn Meade of the University of Wisconsin-Madison).
Draper noted that he has always had a strong drive for learning in particular areas, so much so that he became bored with regular classes and so was home-schooled for a time while in elementary and middle school in Olympia.
“It was an interesting experience to learn how to teach yourself and be more self-reliant and not have everything spoon-fed to you,” he said.
When he learned of the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program, he thought he might be ideally suited for it. Now he’s sure of it, and he believes the same could be true for many other students.
“I would think anyone interested in science would jump at this opportunity,” he said. “It’s actually getting off the sidelines and doing real science.”
