Samantha Brunker, a Ph.D. student in the astronomy department at Indiana University, has been awarded 25 Hubble orbits for her research Escaping Ionizing Radiation in Compact Star-Forming Galaxies: Probing Higher-Mass Systems. Collaborators on this research are faculty member John Salzer and fellow students Danielle Berg and Aparna Venkatesan.
Samantha describes the opportunity in the following video:
Samantha is an advisory board member of the IU Center of Excellence's Graduate Women & Technology student alliance team. She studies the chemical abundances and environments of extreme star-forming galaxies in order to determine how they fit into the narrative of galaxy evolution. Samantha graduated from the University of Kansas in 2015 with a BS in Physics and a BS in Astronomy. At KU Samantha served as the outreach coordinator for both the Society of Physics Students (SPS) and Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). Samantha is currently on the advisory board for the Graduate Women in Technology special interest group which is a part of the Center of Excellence for Women in Technology at Indiana University.
