Writing an NSF AAG with my 4 m/o permanently attached to me and averaging <2 hours of consecutive sleep… my dear collaborators, please triple-check all my text.

(I’m so grateful for this little human, and for the ability to keep doing what I love, even if a bit more slowly these days.)

Find yourself a friend like @astronomay.bsky.social who drops off Taylor Swift–themed desserts while you’re on maternity leave 😍🔥

(I’ve only managed to snap a photo ... demanding, but cute, baby won’t let me actually eat them yet)

*AND* one student even coded this cool graphic to appear at the end of their script:

The homework has been graded... and a few students sent back secret codes with unique seeds for me to decipher on my end 🥹

"Your class was amazing to take"
"You were an amazing professor to have"
"I immensely enjoyed this class"
"... this was a great class and I truly enjoyed it"

Interestingly, HST resolves a compact, off-nuclear, point source coincident with the location of MCG+11-11-032 X2.

Taken together with a few other intriguing characteristics (you’ll have to check out the paper!), this makes the system a compelling candidate for a hyperluminous X-ray source.

Of course, we had to bring out #BAYMAX for further analysis ... and we found that MCG+11-11-032 X2 is compact, hard, and relatively luminous (~10^41 erg/s^-1; assuming it's in the same host galaxy).

MCG+11-11-032 is a unique system that has previously been classified as both a *binary* and a *dual* AGN candidate 🤷‍♀️

High-resolution X-ray observations with Chandra reveal a nearby secondary source—previously undetected in earlier studies—which we name MCG+11-11-032 X2.

Normalizing the very normal in professional (& male-dominated) spaces — at this point, my work clothes can no longer hide the bump 🤷‍♀️ 😊

(Also yes, I have a walking pad… no, I am not weird)

Excited to be visiting Georgia Tech’s Physics department tomorrow, and looking forward to chatting with big group of SMBH merger enthusiasts who work there! 🔥 🕳️ 🕳️ 🔥

(& I am definitely not finishing my slides in the airport)

My Chandra shrine outside my office is complete — thanks to all the observatories that showed up at at @aasoffice.bsky.social for beautiful swag 🤩

…this year I got to send my student to their first conference ever: AAS at National Harbor 🎉

(If you’re interested in galaxy mergers and ML, go check out Paul Wampler’s poster!)

My very first conference was AAS in 2014 at National Harbor an undergraduate (my friend found this embarrassing photo of me that @aasoffice.bsky.social posted)

And I feel like I’ve come full circle because …

How exciting -- I got a brand new Chandra observation to start off the new year ... and it looks like we may have gotten a detection 🎉

(for those new to X-ray observations ... these clumps of pixels are *very* exciting to see in the data, and may be associated with supermassive black holes 🔥🕳️🔥)

I’ve accomplished at lot this year, professionally and personally — I have a lot to be proud of.

But none of my accomplishments can compare to the execution of these cookies for the MIL. Days of work. Hours of perfecting the royal icing consistency. A few curses directed at Snoopy. 💯 worth it.

Another semester over, another excuse to bring out my Schrödinger shirt for the class final …

(and I’m very much looking forward to some rest … soon!)

Iykyk … this prof is ready for her first semester of teaching ✅

It was fantastic having Mitchell Revalski from STScI visit UMBC Physics today to kick off our Fall 2023 colloquia series!

Not only did he give a wonderful talk, but we got to chat science and I’m feeling hopeful about optical photons again 🔭 🕳️

<<rolls up sleeves>> it’s time to become a JWST expert 😅🤞🏼