Our Story

My name is Rae Stanley, I am the lead for this project. I am a 19 year old junior at Marshall University, double majoring in physics and biology. My dream is to study planetary science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I have wanted to be a scientist my entire life. I got introduced to astronomy through Carl Sagan's show Cosmos, and since then I have wanted to be an astrophysicist. I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to be working to make my dreams a reality.

The other two members of my team are Dr. Jon Saken and Dr. Timothy Hamilton. Dr. Saken is an astrophysicist teaching at Marshall University, and he is my academic and research advisor. He had the connection to the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope; without that I never would have been able to secure a spot on such a high-level telescope. Dr. Hamilton is an astrophysicist as Shawnee State University, and a previous faculty member of Marshall University. He is an expert on Seyfert type galaxies, and he really helped me to develop the action plan for investigating this idea. I am eternally grateful to both of them for their help and support with this project.