Brianna Zawadzki

Brianna Zawadzki uses radio interferometers to study the planet-forming environments around stars other than the Sun. She completed her Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University in 2023, where she used simulations, observations, and machine learning techniques to better characterize disks of gas and dust in the early stages of planet formation. As a Brinson Postdoctoral Fellow at Wesleyan University, Zawadzki analyzes new observations of debris disks from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to search for signs of planets and probe the diverse morphologies of these disks. She also continues to develop novel, machine learning based imaging techniques to aid in the acquisition of ultra high resolution interferometric images. This work will help astronomers understand how planets form in greater detail than ever, complementing the thousands of recent exoplanet detections from missions like Kepler and TESS. In addition to her research, Zawadzki enjoys communicating science to the general public through a wide range of outreach events; she spent several years serving as a local organizer of Astronomy on Tap, an organization which brings public astronomy talks to restaurants and breweries, and frequently contributes to a variety of other science events sponsored by universities and public libraries.