Research
My introduction to astronomical research came in the summer of 2006, when I studied the morphology of the Io Plasma Torus with Ron Oliversen of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The IPT is a ring of hot gas from Io's atmosphere which has been swept up by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field and orbits Jupiter at its equator.
That summer, I also observed at the APO 3.5-meter telescope with Carol Grady (GSFC), and discovered a microjet (on the scale of a few arcminutes) from the CTTS RY Tauri, using optical coronography. I continued to work with Dr. Grady in 2007, pooling our APO photometry with multi-wavelength data from the Spitzer Space telescope, the Digital Sky Survey (DSS), and several instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. We investigated the disappearance of a portion of the RY Tauri microjet, and concluded that there was an intervening absorber on top of the jet.
I spent the summer of 2008 working with Scott Wolk at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, using archival Chandra to
describe the characteristics of bright X-ray flares on young stellar objects. I implemented a search algorithm to find suitably intense flares, fit multi-temperature models to the observed spectra, and derived flare properties like loop length and energy. Combining the X-ray data with infrared data from the 2MASS PSC and the IRAC and MIPS instruments on Spitzer Space Telescope, we then examined whether these flare properties depend on the presence of circumstellar disks. We are currently putting the finishing touches on a paper presenting our results.
During my time as an undergrad at the University of Chicago (2006-2009), I worked extensively with Don York studying
the spectra of quasars observed with the Sloane Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). I have been searching for
intervening absorbing systems whose spectral features are hidden within an
inconveniently redshifted Lyman-alpha forest. These objects could be gas
clouds associated with the quasars, or could simply lie along the line of
sight. I also completed a project investigating variability in absorption features of quasar spectra from SDSS.
In August 2009, I began my graduate studies here in Las Cruces. I have just embarked on a project where, under the guidance of Nicole Vogt, I'll be applying observational constraints to n-body simulations of galaxy evolution.
Teaching
As of August 2009 I am a teaching assistant for laboratory section M02 of Jim Murphy's ASTR 105G class. My teaching page may be found here.
Publications
X-ray Flaring Behavior of Young Stellar Objects
Jacqueline McCleary & Scott Wolk
2009, in preparation
Using Multi-Wavelength Observations to Locate the Accretion Footprint
on a Herbig Ae Star: MWC 480
C.A. Grady, K. Hamaguchi, G.M. Williger, G. Schneider, M.L. Sitko, J.E. McCleary,
B. Stecklum, A. Shenoy
2009, in preparation
Meetings
GFP-IFS: a coronagraphic integral field spectrograph for the APO 3.5-meter
telescope
David G. Bonfield, B. Woodgate, Carol A. Grady, George M. Hilton, Larry
A. White, & Jacqueline McCleary
2008, SPIE, 7014, 228
Understanding the Nature of RY Tau's Dark Lane
Jacqueline McCleary, B. Stecklum, C. Grady, B. Woodgate, & Don York
2007, BAAS, 211, 6214
