Untitled - Jefferson Scholars Foundation

FELLOWS IN RESIDENCE 2012-13
WILLIAM JOSEPH DIRIENZO (2008)
EDWARD P. OWENS FELLOW
Department of Astronomy
University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.S.)
University of Virginia (M.S.)
Charlottesville, Virginia
Bill has been busy researching the mysteries of star formation in
the Milky Way galaxy. His major focus is the origin of the most
massive stars because, even though they are rare, they have the
greatest affect on their environment and their formation is the
most difficult to understand. He has been preparing a paper for
publication about the identification and analysis of triggered star
formation in several regions. The presentation of this work won
a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award for an outstanding
graduate student poster at the 218th Meeting of the American Astronomical
Society. Bill has begun to work in depth on his dissertation
topic, the characteristics of Infrared Dark Clouds identified
by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, and how that relates to
the presence and type of star formation. This project will use data
taken in the infrared, radio, and millimeter wavelength ranges. He
has recently begun collecting data from the Combined Array for
Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy in California to study the temperature, density, and chemical structure of
IRDCs. Bill is involved with a program to mentor students at the Central Virginia Governor’s School for Science and Technology
. He advised students working on the astrochemistry of a giant star’s wind and two star-forming regions, as well
as the properties of Active Galactic Nuclei. Bill has also been advising an undergraduate Jefferson Scholar working on a
project to identify Young Stellar Objects in a star-forming region and compare their infrared colors to their X-ray properties.
This project is a continuation of a CVGS project from the previous year. Bill was the graduate student member of
the Astronomy Department Admissions and Recruitment Committee for the past two years. He has recently completed
the Teaching Resource Center’s “Tomorrow’s Professor Today” program, and successfully implemented teaching methods
from the TPT program in his first solo taught course, Astronomy 1210: Introduction to the Sky and Solar System, last
summer. Bill is excited to be the new Natural Sciences associate editor for the Jefferson Journal of Science and Culture.
LAURA EMILY GOLDBLATT (2008)
JOHN S. LILLARD FELLOW
Department of English
Wesleyan University (B.A.)
Charlottesville, Virginia
This past year Laura served as the president of the Graduate
English Students Association. In addition to this departmental
commitment, she delivered a paper at the South Atlantic Modern
Language Association annual conference in Atlanta and at the biannual
meeting of the Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
in Berkeley. This summer she will attend the Futures of American
Studies Institute at Dartmouth University where she will workshop
a prospective article drawn from the third chapter of her dissertation.
She is also currently working on an article about representations
of Native Americans on U.S. postal stamps at the turn of the
twentieth-century which she is co-authoring with professor and
director of Global Development Studies Program, Richard Handler.
They plan to complete the article sometime in August.
2012 FELLOWS SUPPLEMENT
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