I am currently attending Georgia State University as a PhD Graduate Student in Astronomy. I recieved a B.S. from the College of Charleston in Astronomy and Astrophysics and a B.S. from CofC in Physics. I have also recieved a Masters in Physics with an Astronomy concentration from Georgia State University.
I am an avid country music fan and will frequent live music venues. I also enjoy fishing, working on cars, and am a die hard Liverpool supporter (YNWA).
A brief summary of my research experiences. My area of expertise is in stellar structure and evolution, escpecially rapidly rotating stars. To learn more about my research projects, press the "Learn More" botton below.
The Struve-Sahade Effect is the apparent strengthening of a star's spectrum as it approaches and recedes. The physical nature of this effect is not very well understood and what impact it would have on derived orbital parameters. We investigated the S-S effect using IUE UV spectra to determine the impact of spectral variability has on derived stellar masses.
We aimed to determine the correlatation between the width of a star's CCF peak and the rotational velocity of the star. To accomplish this we used spectra from O and B stars with known vsini from HST and cross-correlated them with non-rotating TLUSTY synthetic stellar spectra and measured the width of the peak.
Using the CHARA array, we are going to reconstuct images of rapidly rotating stars just hotter the the Kraft Break, the division between convective and radiative envelopes. The images of the "Coolest Rapid Rotators" will allow us to use new 3D convection models to probe the external and internal structure of these stars.
We are searching for peculiar spectral line profiles in order to find near pole-on rapidly rotating stars. We are using spectra from the 1.5m telescope at CTIO using the CHIRON echelle spectrograph to look for Vega like stars, which is a known near pole-on rapid rotator.
Feel free to reach out at my email. Please send me an email at ckane6@gsu.edu instead of using this form as it is not functional yet.