Dr. Johanna Nagy
Pronouns:
she/her
Department:
Dunlap
Research:
the development of optical components for SPIDER’s first flight in January 2015 and the analysis of data from that flight.
Education:
PhD in Physics from Case Western Reserve University in 2017
Johanna worked with Professor Barth Netterfield’s Ballooning Astrophysics group on a telescope called SPIDER. SPIDER studies the Universe when it was much less than one second old by looking for a signature from gravitational waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation.
Johanna’s doctoral work focused on the development of optical components for SPIDER’s first flight in January 2015 and the analysis of data from that flight. At the Dunlap, she plans to continue her analysis projects while also working of the construction and deployment of the gondola and pointing systems for SPIDER’s second flight, which is planned for December 2019. The second flight will add a high-frequency observing band to characterize the galactic foregrounds that could mimic the primordial signal.
Johanna received her PhD in Physics from Case Western Reserve University in 2017, working with Professor John Ruhl. She joined the Dunlap Institute in September 2017.
