New Year’s Eve and Looking Back at 2018

It’s December 31, 2018, and time to reflect on the year that has passed. I won’t be able to mention everything and everyone but here are just a few notes.

Berkeley grad student Jason Wang completed his Ph.D. thesis and went on to a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech. Postdoc Tom Esposito published his study of the HD 35841 debris disk and started working tirelessly on a paper that encompasses all of the debris disk work conducted with GPI for the past five years. Postdoc Megan Ansdell published several high-impact papers and her outstanding work was recognized with an award from the IAU. Former Berkeley postdoc Rob De Rosa transitioned to Stanford, but continued working with me and discovered a very important property of the HD 106906 planetary system to be published in early 2019.

As for myself, some highlights of 2018 include publishing my book on the nature of space and time called The Oneironauts (www.oneironauts.org), with enthusiastic reader reviews, succeeding with a 40-orbit Hubble program to closely study the properties of 10 debris disks, being elected to membership in the Sigma Xi honor society for scientists and engineers, and beginning a brand new project to teach astronomy to the blind and visually impaired.

I hope everyone enjoys success and happiness for 2019!

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