Welcome! This project recently migrated onto Zooniverse’s new architecture. For details, see here.
The Team
Several of our citizen scientists are now featured on NASA webpages! Click on the names to learn more about Alexandru Enachioaie, Emily Burns Kaurin, Milton Bosch, Katharina Doll, Hugo Durantini Luca, Joshua Hamilton, and Jonathan Holden.
Science Team
Steven Silverberg (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian) is a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Steven got his bachelor's degree from Rice University and his Ph.D from the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining CfA, he was a postdoc at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. He has primarily worked on observations, mostly related to circumstellar disks and cool dwarfs. He has been part of Disk Detective since May 2014, including leading the project as part of his doctoral and post-doctoral research from 2016 to present. You can follow him on Twitter: @silverbergastro.
Dr. Marc Kuchner (NASA) is the NASA Citizen Science Officer. Marc got his bachelor's degree from Harvard, his Ph.D. from Caltech, and completed one postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and one at Princeton. He has worked on theory, observations and instrumentation, mostly related to extrasolar planets, circumstellar disks, or planet formation. You can follow him on Twitter: @marckuchner.
John Wisniewski (University of Oklahoma) is a Presidential Professor and Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma. John holds a BS in astronomy-physics (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and PhD in physics (University of Toledo). He served as a NPP postdoctoral fellow at NASA GSFC and a NSF AAPF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. John studies a broad range of topics in stellar astrophysics, circumstellar disks, and extrasolar planets. John tweets mainly about his pugs and the overwhelming awesomeness of the Grateful Dead. You can follow him on Twitter: @wistwitski.
Hugo A. Durantini Luca (IATE-OAC, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba-CONICET) is an astronomy student in UNC-Famaf (Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física) from Córdoba, Argentina. Was part of the TOROS project, which aimed to perform an astronomical survey of the southern hemisphere sky in search of optical transients as counterparts for the gravitational wave observatory LIGO. He has been part of the Disk Detective Citizen Science team since the birth of the project in 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @HADL2015.
Elisabeth Matthews (U. Geneva) is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Geneva. Elisabeth previously was a postdoc at MIT's Kavly Institute, and before that received a PhD from the University of Exeter, and a Masters from the University of Cambridge. Her main research focus is giant exoplanets far from their host stars, and their impact on circumstellar disks in exoplanetary systems and the dynamics of the system as a whole. She has also been working on detecting exoplanets with the TESS mission, which is searching for small planets very close to their host stars. Follow her on twiter at @lis_matthews.
Jonathan Holden (AAS-HEAD, Colorado Local Section) studied nuclear mechanical engineering at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas. In addition to researching high-energy cosmic ray particles at the university, he began reaching out to do physics and astronomy research through Zooniverse, and joined Disk Detective in 2014. He has also participated in Higgs Hunters, Gravity Spy, and Supernova Hunters.
Milton Bosch is a retired medical doctor. He has been an active participant in Disk Detective since 2014, and also works with Planet Hunters and Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. When not working on Zooniverse projects, you can find him tending his orchard, salmon fishing, at the piano, or joining John W. in singing the praises of the Grateful Dead.
Michiharu Hyogo is currently working as a lecturer in Experimental Physics at Meisei University, Japan. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 2005. He has received master’s degree in Astronomy at the Australian National university in 2010, and in Information Technology at the University of Canberra in 2012. He has been an active participant in Disk Detective since launch in 2014. You can follow him on Twitter @HyogoMichiharu.
Lisa Stiller has been an active participant in Disk Detective since 2018. She earned her B.S. in biological sciences from the University of New Orleans, and an M.S. in Biometry from the LSU Medical Center. She has worked as a (bio)statistician, and continues to teach home-school through high school levels. In addition to Disk Detective, she has taken part in Planet Hunters TESS, Gravity Spy, Bash the Bug, and Science Scribbler.
Maria C. Schutte (University of Oklahoma) is a physics Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma. Maria received her bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Evansville in southern Indiana in 2017. She is in her third year at OU and has been working with Disk Detective to search for bright disks around stars and substellar objects since 2019. You can follow her on Twitter: @maria_schutte.
Katharina Doll (University of Augsburg, Germany) has worked on both Disk Detective and Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 in vetting objects for follow-up observing after classification, reading papers, examining follow-up telescope data with specialist software (SAO DS9) to look for artifacts. She has also been honing and developing her Python programming skills and has co-authored several astronomical papers. Her interest in astronomy and involvement with Zooniverse secured her a spot on a student excursion to CERN in Geneva, where she got to tour the facilities and even see the CMS detector open for maintenance.
Joshua Hamilton studied Media and Information at Michigan State University, and is currently working on an M.A. in Theology. Josh joined the Disk Detective team in 2016, and in addition to working on advanced vetting of Disk Detective objects, has been able to use his media skills to assist in comparing Disk Detective objects to previous disk studies. He has classified over 80,000 objects from the Disk Detective library on Zooniverse. When not working on Disk Detective, Josh enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters, reading, and cooking.
