FGCU Stellar Research Group
2018 -

Current Members

Derek Buzasi
Whitaker Eminent Scholar in Science

Derek studies stars of all kinds, focusing primarily on stellar activity and oscillations. He also has been known to dabble in exoplanet detection, stellar-planetary interactions, and astronomical instrumentation both ground and space-based. Currently he’s leading a design study for MAGIC, a multichannel NUV SmallSat which will detect and characterize oscillations in massive stars.

Christian Bedwell
Undergraduate Digital Media Designer

Christian is a Software Engineering alumnus and an undergraduate student in the Digital Media Design program. Currently, he is applying his expertise in branding, logo design, publication design, user experience design, user interface design, front-end development, and color theory, to develop materials of public outreach for MAGIC.

Hunter Bedwell
Undergraduate Digital Media Designer

Hunter is a recent graduate from the Software Engineering program at FGCU who has returned to pursue a second Bachelors in Digital Media Design. His interests consist of user interface design, web and mobile application development, and branding.

Tristan Hodson
Undergraduate Environmental Engineer

Morgan Barkhurst
Undergraduate Materials Engineer

Morgan is a college student who studies solar sails in her spare time. She is a space enthusiast who is fascinated by the science, math, and mystery of the universe. She has interned with NASA Marshall twice and has published with AIAA on her research and currently works on repairing FGCU’s telescope and concept design for a lunar habitat with NASA.

Former Members

Lindsey Carboneau
PhD Student at University of Birmingham

Lindsey was a former Software Engineering student whose contributions to the organization included working on developing the ensemble detrending algorithm for the TASOC photometry pipeline. She is currently a PhD student in astronomy at the University of Birmingham in the UK

Hannah Andrews
Software Engineer

Hannah was a former Software Engineering student and a recipient of the Department of Defense SMART Scholarship. Hannah worked on a range of projects using Kepler and K2 data, and now works full-time for the Air Force.

Chaise Ballotti
Software Engineering Undergraduate

Chaise transferred to FGCU in 2018 and had hoped to be one of the first to graduate with the new Physics major. He worked on a project using Limb Darkening parameters to learn more about exoplanet host stars.

Dory Mauretour
MS Student (Software Engineering)

Dory was a Software Engineering student, whose project used gPhoton to look at light curves for B stars in GALEX data. She is now Graduate Student in Computer Engineering at UCF.

Gilbert J. Green III
Undergraduate Software Engineer

Gibson was a former Software Engineering student, and started working with us as part of the Honors class. He also worked with gPhoton to look at GALEX data and create light curves.

John Maurer
Undergraduate Software Engineer

John was a Software Engineering student who started working with us as part of the Honors Planet Hunters class. He worked on comparing transit fitting codes for investigating Limb Darkening.

Adam Dressel
Electronics Engineer

Adam was a former Software Engineering student who had worked on a project using TESS data to look for visual counterparts to overlapping GRB events observed by Swift. He now works for the DoD as an Electronics Engineer.

Andy Lezcano
System Administrator

Andy worked on the determination of rotation periods for cool stars in the Kepler field, and was the original developer of a tool to enable student-led analysis of Kepler light curves. Andy is now a System Administrator at Computer Aid, Inc. He was previously a Test Engineer for the Space Telescope Science Institute, where he played a key role in the James Webb Space Telescope mission.

Ekaterina (Katya) Vydra
Software Engineer at STSCI

Ekaterina was a Software Engineer for the Space Telescope Science Institute. She is currently working on the James Webb Space Telescope mission.

Carly Hessler
Senior Software Engineer

Carly worked on a pipeline for the reduction and analysis of Kepler data. She also worked on Global Hawk Mission Planning Correction of Defects, as well as the preliminary stages (requirements, design documents, etc.) of a new UAV project. She is currently Senior Software Engineer at Space Ground System Solutions.

Sara Johnson
PhD Student at Baylor College of Medicine

Sara was a former Biology student with a microbiology concentration and chemistry minor. Her goal had been to complete a PhD in molecular biology. She had research experience in plant systematics, ecology, bio-informatics, HIV, stem cells, and long non-coding RNA.

Zechariah Dominguez
Integrated Studies Alumni

Harrison Paxton
Software Engineering Alumni