Chelen Johnson
Detecting Brown Dwarfs in Interacting Cataclysmic Binaries: Using Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images to determine whether the companion of the remnant star EE Eri (a white dwarf) is in fact a very low-mass object (sometimes called 'failed star') known as a brown dwarf.
When I look at how the intellectual process changed over the last year I imagine it going from a diffuse look at research and the entire conference experience to the extreme focus on our own project during the year and finally reaching outward again in Seattle to incorporate new information and understandings. Returning to AAS made the experience complete.
It’s addictive—this is not like any other program that you have ever been through, where you participate for a while and then finish up and then it’s just something that you did once. I have found that I don’t want to stop[...] A certain percentage of us, at least, can’t put this down once we are exposed to it.
[I did not anticipate] meeting a Nobel Prize Winner – Saul Perlmutter – and getting a picture with him.
