Hello! I'm Natalie Myers.
Astrophysics PhD candidate at Texas Christian University
Send me an email! n.myers@tcu.edu
Astrophysics PhD candidate at Texas Christian University
Send me an email! n.myers@tcu.edu
I am a Galactic Archeologist; I use stars to study the chemical and dynamical history of the Milky Way. Specifically, I utilize the chemical abundances of open and globular clusters to explore the past and present distribution of different element groups, as well as how that distribution may have evolved throughout the Milky Way’s lifetime. Below are a couple specific projects I have had the opportunity to work on while being a graduate student under Dr. Peter Frinchaboy.
As part of the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) survey, I leveraged the infrared spectroscopic data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s APOGEE spectrograph to build and publish the largest (at the time) open cluster catalog with uniform chemical abundances. This catalog includes 2061 high-probability stellar members across 153 different open clusters which each have abundances for up to 16 different elements. We use this dataset to analyze the radial abundance gradients in the Milky Way and how they evolve through time.
For more information see: Myers et al. 2022
I have had the amazing opportunity to travel to multiple observatories and observe my own high-resolution (R~60,000), optical, spectra for the stars found in the OCCAM catalog. I have applied standard, spectral reduction and analysis techniques with IRAF and BACCHUS to derive my own abundances for these stars, especially focusing on the heavy neutron-capture elements. These abundances are very difficult to measure reliably in an infrared spectrum, and so have remained elusive within the APOGEE survey. In future publications, I will use these new abundances to explore the evolution of the neutron-capture radial abundance gradients and calibrate chemical-age relationships (known as chemical clocks).
Born and raised in Madison Wisconsin, I grew up with a love of the arts and sciences. I spent much of my younger years drawing and painting, and when I realized that "physics" was the science where I could learn about the how and why light and colors are what they are, I was determined to study it. At the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul Minnesota, I learned about spectroscopy and all the information light hides. After getting the opportunity to do stellar spectroscopy research with Dr. Mike Wood, I headed to Texas Christian University for grad school. Currently, I am working on my PhD, where I hope to graduate in the Spring of 2025 (wish me luck).
I've had multiple opportunities to travel to and use multiple amazing telescopes, including the 6.5m Magellan Baade telescope (pictured), Keck Observatory's 10m telescope, McDonald Observatory's 2.7m Harlan J. Smith telescope, and Lick observatory's 3m Shane telescope.
Overall, I have observed 32 nights.
Throughout my graduate career I have given many presentations. For this poster, on globular cluster membership, global chemistry, and orbits, I was awarded the AAS Chambliss award for exemplary research. I was able to use my expertise on cluster membership to assist in the SDSS/APOGEE Globular cluster VAC (below):
Schiavon et al. 2023
I have strong experience writing code for data science and image reductions purposes. Including: