Isaac DaSilva
I am passionate about learning more about the universe, especially because there are so many unanswered questions and constant new discoveries being made about it! This fuels my fire!
Isaac da Silva
Isaac da Silva
My story
When I first learned about the universe in elementary school, one question led to another, and I began watching space documentaries, movies — my favorite move is Interstellar — and much more. I am a curious person and I always have more questions regarding the universe – especially because so many are unanswered! I want to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D. in astronomy and then work for NASA and do top level astronomy research!
Recently, I worked on finding stellar parameters of red giants in the old open cluster NGC 7789. I used data from the Gaia space mission to identify various things about the cluster and used various formulas to find parameters such as temperature, luminosity, etc. I then created color magnitude diagrams in Python using Gaia photometry so we could get specific members of the cluster and look at their lithium abundances. In October, these data will be used for a WIYN telescope observing run, to understand why these stars have so much lithium. Receiving this scholarship award will allow me to reach my dreams of becoming an astrophysicist. I am honored to be given this award, and I believe this will help me reach the light at the end of the dark tunnel.
