Welcome

Risa Wechsler KIPAC director

Welcome to Risa Wechsler, who began her appointment as director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). Our tremendous gratitude is due to Tom Abel, whose ably led KIPAC over the past five-years.

The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, or KIPAC, was inaugurated in 2003 as an independent laboratory of Stanford University to serve as a bridge between the disciplines of astrophysics, cosmology and particle physics. KIPAC's members work in the Physics and Applied Physics Departments on the Stanford campus and at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Its mission is to bring the resources of modern computational, experimental, observational and theoretical science to bear on our understanding of the universe at large.

Research Highlights

May 30, 2019 | Where are they now? Kate Follette

GPI imaging of the planetary system HR 8799 in K band, showing three of the four planets. (Credit: Christian Marois (NRC Canada), Patrick Ingraham (Stanford University) and the GPI Team.)

In the occasional series, "Where are they now?" we check in with KIPAC alumni: where they are now, how they've fared since their days exploring particle astrophysics and cosmology at the Institute, and how their KIPAC experiences have shaped their journeys. Next up is Kate Follette, an alum of Professor Bruce Macintosh's exoplanet group, where she searched for young exoplanets and protoplanetary disks (aka planet nurseries), in large part using data from the Gemini Planetary Imager (GPI). She's now an assistant professor of astronomy at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she teaches astronomy. She also teaches about those exoplanets she's still searching for.

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