Sarah Kane

Before arriving at Penn, I had no research experience and was excited but nervous to begin. Because I want to pursue a career in astrophysics academia, I knew that research would be a crucial part of my undergraduate experience. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with Professor Bhuv Jain from the Department of Physics and Astronomy through the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program (PURM) in the summer of 2020. Our goal was to identify new planets outside of our own solar system using a type of machine learning algorithm called a neural network, and I continued that research during that 2020-2021 academic year. In the summer of 2021, I started a new project with Professor Jain involving large groups of galaxies called clusters—some of the largest structures in the universe! 

In the summer of 2022, I worked at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). In Austin, I worked with Professor Keith Hawkins and Dr. Zachary Maas to use machine learning to find some of the oldest stars in our galaxy! My research involves programming in Python and machine learning, so I am happy to chat about those techniques as well as physics and astronomy research in general.

Having been born legally blind, I also have a strong interest in the accessibility of science to people with disabilities. I was involved in usability tests for Astronify, a Space Telescope Science Institute project developed to turn certain astronomical data into sound to make it more accessible to the blind and visually impaired. Please feel free to reach out if you are interested in the intersection of disability advocacy and science, as I would love to connect with more people on the subject!

• Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring (PURM)
• Research Assistant to Professor Bhuvnesh Jain, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• NSF REU Scholar, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin

Additional groups: Disability Advocacy @ Penn, Penn Society of Physics Students, Penn Women in Physics, Science Olympiad Urban Initiative, Penn Hillel