Sabina Sagynbayeva
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sabinastro.bsky.social
Sabina Sagynbayeva
@sabinastro.bsky.social
(astro)Physics PhD candidate @ Stony Brook. Astrobites alum. From Kazakhstan 🇰🇿. She/her.

Musical theater nerd, so pretty much insufferable.

Statistics, planets, and stellar cartography.

https://ssagynbayeva.github.io
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
i’m excited to announce that i am hiring (again)!

i am looking for a postdoc in computational astrophysics that’s excited about models of stellar transients and multi-messenger astronomy to join my group (star stuff @ steward) at @uarizona.bsky.social!

apply here ✨💥: aas.org/jobregister/...
Postdoctoral Research Associate I Computational Stellar Astrophysics (Steward Observatory) | American Astronomical Society
The University of Arizona (U of A) Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory (SO) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate. The successful candidate will work with Professor Ca...
aas.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
I wrote a textbook!

I hope you like it.

store.ioppublishing.org/page/detail/...
November 3, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
Thrilled to have two years' of work out, in a pair of papers led by @gradientrider.bsky.social and @maxecharles.bsky.social.

We've built a data-driven calibration of the James Webb Interferometer to near its fundamental limits for high-res imaging - explainer at @aunz.theconversation.com!
How we sharpened the James Webb telescope’s vision from a million kilometres away
The only Australian hardware on board the legendary telescope is starting to fulfil its duties.
theconversation.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
Amazing work solving a tricky calibration problem with JWST aperture masking data! Any hope to improve ground-based systematics with this general approach?
@benjaminpope.bsky.social

arxiv.org/abs/2510.09806
AMIGO: a Data-Driven Calibration of the JWST Interferometer
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hosts a non-redundant Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) in its Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument, providing the only dedicate...
arxiv.org
October 14, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
So excited that our paper is finally out! We analyzed archival TESS observations of RZ Psc and detected 24 transiting exocomets. And, Adalyn is an amazing undergrad applying for grad school this year!
Gibson et al. “TESS Discovers a Second System of Transiting Exocomets in the Extreme
Debris Disk of RZ Psc”
showing 24 exocomet transits and the existence of a broken power law for the sizes of these exocomets, unlike Beta Pic’s exocomet distribution #exoplanet #astrodon #astrosci
October 14, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
Polka-dotted Stars II: Starspots and obliquities of Kepler-17 and Kepler-63. Sabina Sagynbayeva et. al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07130
October 9, 2025 at 4:25 AM
I love this little support group that we virtually created with @astroshashank.bsky.social and @benjaminpope.bsky.social 🫶🏻 haha
October 7, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
I like my plot of equipotentials a lot, but I can never shake the fact that @sabinastro.bsky.social calls it the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle plot...

zingale.github.io/stars/notebo...
October 6, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
Rotation Periods for Stars in Open Cluster NGC 6819 From Kepler IRIS Light Curves
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.02255
Sabina Sagynbayeva, Isabel L. Colman, Will M. Farr.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02255
arXiv abstract link
arxiv.org
October 3, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Some proposals are so short, and my only hope is that all the exoplaneteers in Physics departments have emailed their colleagues a schematic of transits so now everyone is on the same page lmao
October 3, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
New paper by me and @benjaminpope.bsky.social! How well can we map a star using optical interferometry?

This is just a submitted preprint at the moment--comments and questions welcome! (1/N)

arxiv.org/abs/2509.25433
October 1, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
BREAKING: WE WON!!!
💥 💥 💥

Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment.

Full ruling here:
Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law – #261 in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-10685) – CourtListener.com
Judge William G. Young: ORDER entered. FINDINGS OF FACT AND RULINGS OF LAW, PURSUANT TO FED. R. CIV. P. 52(A)(Sonnenberg, Elizabeth) (Additional attachment(s) added on 9/30/2025: # 1 Main Document) (J...
www.courtlistener.com
September 30, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Super excited about my new paper coming soon with Isabel Colman and @farrwill.bsky.social !! This project quickly became another statistics bootcamp for me. 😅
September 29, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Hooray for amazing collaborators!!!
Hooray for great students who also like musicals!! @sabinastro.bsky.social
September 24, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
I learned a new word this weekend:

Congratudolences!

It’s what you say when someone wins a something that is arguably an honor… but will also lead to more work. Like the winner of the pie eating contest & the prize is more pie.

Or being elected department chair.

Hi! I’m the new CUNY Astro chair!
September 22, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
You know about Pavlov's bell.

Pavlov grabbed some dogs, rang a bell before feeding them, and eventually the dogs started to salivate when the bell rang, regardless of whether they were given food or not.

Now, let's say you studied the brain activity of those dogs. 🧵
September 21, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
Some tidbits about the most recent 1,000 exoplanets:

- Nearly half (~490) were discovered with NASA's TESS mission
- As a result, their host stars are nearly *10 times brighter on average* than previous stars!
- We have found a lot more cool giant planets (Jupiter analogs), with RV and imaging
Sometimes 2025 just feels like a lot, and you need an excuse to celebrate your fabulous team (and the whole exoplanet community!) reaching a new milestone…

Happy 6,000 Confirmed Exoplanets Day, everybody!!!!

(You may recognize the narrator of the video at the link! 🫣)

www.nasa.gov/universe/exo...
September 17, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
I have a fun new paper out that demonstrates the power of combining radial velocities (RVs), astrometry, and dynamical simulations in understanding planetary system demographics. You can access the paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2509.12334
No Giant Planets in the Eta Cassiopeiae System: Dynamical Implications of a Wide Binary Companion
Given the vast number of stars that exist within binary systems, it remains important to explore the effect of binary star environments on the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems. Nearby b...
arxiv.org
September 17, 2025 at 1:05 AM
One thing I am proud of in my PhD is creating collaborations with the nicest people. All my research meetings are just full of positive vibes*❤️. (You guys were kind of bad at saying no to me and I’m so glad you were 😂)

*sometimes I complain about characters in TV shows but I assume people enjoy it😅
September 14, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
My paper with Loucas Pillaud-Vivien and Lawrence Saul, “Variational Inference for Uncertainty Quantification: An Analysis of Trade-offs”, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Machine Learning Research.

📃 arxiv.org/abs/2403.13748

🧵 1/
September 10, 2025 at 12:28 AM
The real statistics I’d like to see is how many times I used “therefore” in this job season. 😅
September 5, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Sabina Sagynbayeva
STScI's Dr. Néstor Espinoza will explore some of the most exciting findings #NASAWebb is unveiling about the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. 🔭 🧪

DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 7 p.m. ET: https://youtube.com/live/i466qvWBQ1o?feature=share
September 4, 2025 at 5:43 PM