Last week, our group attended AAS243 in New Orleans and ExoPAG 29 just before it.
AAS243 was the first AAS meeting of graduate students Nathan Whitsett and Bryce Wedig, who presented preliminary results from our ongoing work. In particular, Bryce presented our pipeline to simulate strong lens images using the Wide-Field Instrument on the upcoming Roman Space Telescope, and Nathan showed our initial results from a search for stellar flares in the TESS data potentially induced by orbiting planets. I talked about the AXIS mission and how it can address the degeneracies in explaining the demographics of small exoplanets by improving our understanding of atmospheric escape via photoevaporation.
We also staffed the WashU Physics booth in the Grad School and REU Fair, talking to prospective students about the research thrusts and climate of our department.
Overall, it has been an intense week with great science and company!
