She's an Astronomer: Anna Manning

Anna Manning is a Masters student in Astronomy at the University of Alabama (she’s working under the supervision of Dr. Bill Keel on the overlapping galaxies project). She moved to Tuscaloosa, AL (where she lives with 2 sorority sisters) after completing her undergraduate degree at Clemson University in South Carolina. In her free time she enjoys painting, photography, and scrapbooking. At 25 she’s the youngest of our professional (or future professional) astronomers to be interviewed. In the future she would like to either continue her work in astronomical research or perhaps move into space exploration. She also really enjoys the public outreach part of Galaxy Zoo and thinks it would be nice to contribute to that in her future career.

• How did you first hear about Galaxy Zoo?

I first heard of it when I started my research in Grad School with Dr. Keel at the University of Alabama.

I’ve mostly worked with Dr. Keel to create a catalog of overlapping galaxy pairs. We’ve been to Kitt Peak to observe some of the objects which Dr. Keel has blogged about.

• What do you like most about being involved in Galaxy Zoo?

On field trip in middle school we spent a day at space camp in Florida which began my general interest. In high school I really enjoyed Physics class and decided to major in it in college where I started doing actual research in astronomy.

This topic actually sparked an interesting conversation in my office. A female office mate and I were discussing how we don’t think there have been any obstacles for us. A male office mate brought up that he believes it is easier to be a woman than a man in astronomy. So I think this is something that changes based on the person and I’m thankful that I have been fortunate in the universities I’ve attended.

I have learned so much from so many people – and often people that I didn’t know had any interest in astronomy at all!

This post is part of the ongoing She’s an Astronomer series on the Galaxy Zoo Blog is support of the IYA2009 cornerstone project of the same name (She’s an Astronomer). We are listed on the She’s an Astronomer website in their Profiles.

• Zooites:
  • Hanny Van Arkel (Galaxy Zoo volunteer and finder of Hanny’s Voorwerp). Hanny’s interview in het Nederlands.
  • Alice Sheppard (Galaxy Zoo volunteer and forum moderator).
  • Gemma Couglin (“fluffyporcupine”, Galaxy Zoo volunteer and forum moderator).
  • Aida Berges (Galaxy Zoo volunteer – major irregular galaxy, asteroid and high velocity star finder). Entrevista de Aida en español.
  • Julia Wilkinson (“jules”, Galaxy Zoo volunteer. Frequent forum poster, and member of irregular and HVS projects).
  • Els Baeton (“ElisabethB”, Galaxy Zoo folunteer. Frequent forum poster, and member of most of the spin-off projects!). Els’s interview in het Nederlands.
• Researchers:
  • Dr. Vardha Nicola Bennert (researcher at UCSB involved in Hanny’s Voorwerp followup and the “peas” project). Vardha’s Interview auf Deutsch.
  • Carie Cardamone (graduate student at Yale who lead the Peas paper).
  • Dr. Kate Land (original Galaxy Zoo team member and first-author of the first Galaxy Zoo scientific publication; now working in the financial world).
  • Dr. Karen Masters (researcher at Portsmouth working on red spirals, and editor of this blog series.)
  • Dr. Pamela L. Gay (astronomy researcher and communicator based at Southern Illinois University).

Still to come in the series – a few more Galaxy Zoo volunteers and researchers. We’re not quite done yet!