Alumni

Current and Former TA / ITC Postdoctoral Fellows and Graduate Students

The Division of Theoretical Astrophysics and the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) at Harvard University is a center for excellence in theoretical astrophysics that integrates conceptual theory and computational modeling. The ITC was established in 2004 and is regarded by many as the most prominent theory center in astrophysics in the world. Former postdoctoral fellows and graduate students have gone on to premier and competitively sought-after positions in astrophysics after completing their research fellowships at the ITC.

 

Postdoctoral Fellows

 

Name
Year of Departure
Current TItle
Current Institution
Diana Powell
2023
Assistant Professor
University of Chicago
Jamie Law-Smith
2023
Assistant Professor
University of Chicago
Kareem El-Badry
2023
Assistant Professor
Caltech
Matthew Liska
2023
Einstein Fellow and Research Faculty
Georgia Tech
Aaron Smith
2023
Assistant Professor
University of Texas Austin
Rahul Kannan
2023
Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
York University
Kirk Barrow
2022
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Bryan Terrazas
2022
Postdoctoral Researcher
Columbia
Anna Rosen
2022
Assistant Professor
UCSD
Rainer Weinberger
2021
CITA Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Toronto
Sownak Bose
2021
Assistant Professor
Durham University
Ana Bonaca
2021
Staff Scientist
Carnegie Observatories
Shmuel Bialy
2021
Assistant Professor
Technion University (Israel)
Paul Duffell
2020
Assistant Professor
Purdue University
Erica Nelson
2020
Assistant Professor
University of Colorado, Boulder
Carl Rodriguez
2020
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina
Daniel D'Orazio
2020
Assistant Professor
University of Copenhagen
Michelle Ntampaka
2020
Data Scientist and Assistant Astronomer
STScI
Antonija Oklopcic
2020
Assistant Professor
University of Amsterdam
Laura Kreidberg
2019
Director, Atmospheric Physics of Exoplanets
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
John Forbes
2019
Flatiron Research Fellow
Center for Computational Astrophysics
Benedikt Diemer
2019
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland
Anna Ijjas
2019
Senior Research Scientist
New York University
Manasvi Lingham
2019
Assistant Professor
Florida Tech
Anastasia Fialkov
2018
Senior Research Fellow
Kavli Institute for Cosmology (Cambridge, UK) 
Federico Marinacci
2018
Associate Professor
University of Bologna
Blakesley Burkhart
2018
Assistant Professor
Rutgers
Caroline Morley
2018
Assistant Professor
Univ Texas at Austin
Gongjie Li
2018
Assistant Professor
Georgia Tech
Ilse Cleeves
2018
Assistant Professor
University of Virginia
Xuening Bai
2017
Faculty (Associate Professor)
Institute for Advanced Study at Tsinghua University (IASTU) and Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics (THCA).
Marion Dierickx
2017
Research Associate, J. Kovac Lab
CfA
Danny Milisavlevic
2017
Assistant Professor 
Purdue University
Sayan Chakraborti
2016
Researcher
Renaissance Technologies LLC
Cora Dvorkin
2016
Associate Professor
Harvard University, Dept. of Physics
Yanfei Jiang
2016
Associate Research Scientist, Planet Formation
CCA, Flatiron Institute
Lorenzo Sironi
2016
Assistant Professor
Columbia University
Annalisa Pillepich
2015
Independent Research Group Leader, G&C Theory
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidleberg, Germany
Raffaella Margutti
2015
Associate Professor
UC Berkeley
Cameron McBride
2015
Vice President of Data Science, Engagement Analytics
Hydrow, Inc.
Michael McCourt
2015
Principal Data Scientist
Invoca
Thomas Greif
2015
 
Deceased
Laura Sales
2015
Associate Professor
UC, Riverside
Konstantin Batygin
2014
Professor
Caltech
Simeon Bird
2014
Professor
UC Riverside
Shy Genel
2014
Associate Research Scientist
The Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics
Smadar Naoz
2014
Associate Professor
UCLA
Olek Sadowski
2014
Senior Quantitative Researcher
Akuna Capital
Molly Swanson
2014
Physics and Math Teacher
Art of Problem Solving Academy, Lexington
Mark Vogelsberger
2014
Associate Professor
M.I.T.
Tassos Fragos
2013
Assistant Professor
Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva
Bence Kocsis
2013
Associate Professor
Oxford University
Marc Metchnik
2013
 
 
Matthew Walker
2013
Associate Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Charlie Conroy
2012
Professor
Harvard University
Elena D'Onghia
2012
Professor
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Anna Frebel
2012
Professor
M.I.T.
Lijun Gou
2012
Professor
National Astronomical Observatories of China
Patrik Jonsson
2012
Senior GNC Engineer
Space-X
Kaitlin Kratter
2012
Associate Professor
Univ. of Arizona
Stella Offner
2012
Associate Professor
University of Texas at Austin
Asaf Pe'er
2012
Professor
University College Cork, Ireland
Hagai Perets
2012
Associate Professor
Technion, Israel
Darin Raggozine
2012
Associate Professor
BYU
Yue Shen
2012
Associate Professor
University of Illinois
Debora Sijacki
2012
Assistant Professor
University of Cambridge, UK
Svetlin Tassev
2012
Physics Teacher
Braintree High School, MA
Matija Cuk
2011
Research Scientist
SETI Institute
Eric Hallman
2011
Internal Consultant
Ab Initio Software
Mario Juric
2011
Professor
University of Washington
Uri Keshet
2011
Associate Professor
Ben-Gurion University
Akshay Kulkarni
2011
Software Engineer
Microsoft, Inc
Jifeng Liu
2011
Principal Astronomer
National Astronomical Observatories of China
Jonathan Pritchard
2011
Senior Lecturer
Imperial College London, England
Yuval Birnboim
2010
Associate Professor
Racah institute of Physics
Chi Kwan Chan
2010
Associate Astronomer/Research Professor
University of Arizona
Mark Dijkstra
2010
Data Scientist
Stitch Fix
Daniel Fabrycky
2010
Associate Professor
University of Chicago
Alison Farmer
2010
Associate Director of Global Engineering
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Dusan Keres
2010
 Professor
UC San Diego
Ruth Murray - Clay
2010
Professor
UC Santa Cruz
Desika Narayanan
2010
Professor
Haverford College
Hiroshi Oda
2010
 
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Alicia Soderberg
2010
 
 
Hy Trac
2010
Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Jaiyul Yoo
2010
Professor
University of Zurich
Daniel Baumann
2009
Professor
University of Amsterdam
Sukanya Chakrabarti
2009
Professor
University of Alabama, Huntsville
Thomas (T.J.) Cox
2009
Data Scientist
Apple
Gregory Dobler
2009
Assistant Professor
University of Delaware
Adam Lidz
2009
Associate Professor
University of Pennsylvania
David Weldrake
2009
Director, GIS & Spatial Services
MBDA (Australia)
Amit Yadav
2009
 
 
Beth Willman
2008
CEO and Director for Science
LSST
Niayesh Afshordi
2007
Professor
University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute
Joseph Barranco
2007
Professor and Chair
San Francisco State University
Avery Broderick
2007
Associate Professor
University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute
Eric Ford
2007
Professor
Penn State University
Tommy Grav
2007
Senior Staff Scientist
Lunar & Planetary Lab, University of Arizona
Yuexing Li
2007
Professor
Penn State University
Jonathan McKinney
2007
Director of Research
H2O.ai
Yeshe Fenner
2006
Chief Operating Officer
ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
Kazunori Kohri
2006
Professor
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)
Miguel Morales
2006
Professor
 University of Washington
Banibrata Mukhopadhyay
2006
Professor
 Indian Institute of Science
Joshua Winn
2006
Associate Professor
M.I.T.
Volker Bromm
2004
Professor
University of Texas, Austin
Ken Nagamine
2004
Professor
Osaka University
James Bullock
2004
Professor
UC Irvine
Naoki Yoshida
2003
Professor
University of Tokyo
Rosalba Perna
2003
Professor
Stony Brook Unuiversity
Feng Yuan
2003
Professor and Director of
Astrophysics Division
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
Stuart Wyithe
2002
Professor
University of Melbourne
Tom Abel
2001
Professor
Stanford
Robert Croft
2001
Professor
Carnegie Mellon
Tiziana Di Matteo
2001
Professor
Carnegie Mellon
Vicky Kalogera
2001
Professor
Northwestern University
Dimitrios Psaltis
2000
Professor
Georgia Tech
Woong-Tae Kim
2000
Professor
Seoul National University
Mikhail Medvedev
2000
Professor
University of Kansas
Volker Springel
2000
Director
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Ue-Li Pen
1999
Professor
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Charles Gammie
1998
Professor
University of Illinois
Uros Seljak
1998
Professor
UC Berkeley
Eve Ostriker
1996
Professor
Princeton University
Shude Mao
1995
Professor and Chair
Tsinghua University
David Clarke
1993
Professor
Saint Mary's University, Nova Scotia, Canada
B. Scott Gaudi
 
Professor
The Ohio State University
Christopher Kochanek
 
Professor
The Ohio State University
Ravi Pilla
 
 
Columbia University
Eric Woods
 
Visiting Assistant Professor
State University of New York, Albany

 

 

Graduate Students

 

Name
Year of Departure
Current TItle
Current Institution
Andrew Saydjari 
2024
Postdoctoral Fellow 
Harvard College Observatory 
Magdalena Siwek 
2024
Postdoctoral Fellow 
Harvard College Observatory 
Zachary Murray 
2024
Postdoctoral Fellow 
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 
Michael Foley
2024
 
 
Ana Maria Delgado 
2024
Postdoctoral Fellow 
Harvard College Observatory 
Daniel Palumbo
2023
Fellow 
Harvard Black Hole Initiative 
Tanveer Karim
2023
FAS Fellow and Dunlap Fellow
University of Toronto 
Floor Broekgaarden
2023
Junior Fellow
Simons Society of Fellows
Chantanelle Nava
2022
Assistant Professor in Astronomy & Physics 
University of Montana 
Brandon Curd
2022
Postdoctoral Fellow
UTSA
Nina Maksimova
2022
David Foundation Scholar
St. Andrews University 
Boryana Hadzhiyska
2022
Miller Postdoctoral Fellow
UC Berkeley 
Xiaohan Wu
2022
Postdoctoral Fellow
CITA
Rohan Naidu
2022
Papalardo Fellow
MIT
Loana Zelko
2021
Postdoctoral Fellow
CITA, University of Toronto 
Ana-Roxana Pop
2021
ML Research Scientist 
Meta
Seth Gossage
2021
CIERA PostDoctoral Fellow
Northwestern University 
Sihan Yuan 
2021
KIPAC Postdoctoral Fellow 
Stanford University 
Ellen Price 
2021
51 Pegasi b PostDoctoral Fellow
University of Chicago
Josh Speagle
2020
Dunlap Postdoctoral Fellowship
Univ Toronto
Jane Huang
2020
Sagan Fellow
Univ of Michigan
Zoe Todd
2020
Sagan Fellow
Univ of Washington
Peter Blanchard
2019
Ciero Fellow
Northwestern
Benjamin Cook
2019
Junior Quantitative Researcher
Akuna Capitol (Boston)
Lehman H. Garrison
2019
Flatiron Research Fellow
CCA (Flatiron Institute)
Yutong Shan
2019
Postdoc Fellow
University of Goettingen
Meng Gu
2019
Russell Postdoc Fellow
Princeton
Xiawei Wang
2019
Consultant/Senior Data Scientist
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
Kate Alexander
2018
Einstein Fellow
Northwestern
How-Huan Chen
2018
CNS Fellow
Univ Texas Austin
Jieun Choi
2018
Sr Applied ML Scientist
Netflix
Kunting Chua
2018
Research Scientist
Institute of High Performing Computing (Singapore)
Philip S. Cowperthwaite
2018
Hubble Fellow
Carnegie Observatories
Christopher Faesi
2018
NSF Fellow
UMass Amherst
Pierre Christian
2018
Physics Faculty
Fairfield University
Ryan Loomis
2018
Jansky Fellow
NRAO
Anjali Tripathi
2018
Scientist
Raytheon
Stephen Portillo
2018
DIRAC Fellow & UW Data Science Fellow
Univ of Washington
Xinyi Guo
2017
Research Scientist
D.E. Shaw Research
Philip Mocz
2017
Einstein Fellow
Princeton
Dawn Graninger
2017
Senior Professinal Staff, Applied Physics Lab
The Johns Hopkins University
Kirit Karkare
2017
Postdoc Researcher, Physics
Univ of Chicago
Meredith A. MacGregor
2017
Assistant Professor
Boulder
Natalie Mashian Fisher
2017
Visiting Professor of Phsyics & Astronomy
Pomona College
Sukrit Ranjan
2017
SCOL Fellow
MIT
Joshua Suresh
2017
Research Scientist
Institute for Disease Modeling
Yuan-Sen Ting
2017
Hubble Fellow
IAS
Andrew Vanderburg
2017
Assistant Professor
U Wisconsin-Madison
Sarah Wellons
2017
CIERA Fellow
Northwestern
Maria Drout
2016
Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow
Carnegie Observatories
Douglas Ferrer
2016
Robotics Software Engineer
iRobot
Gregory Green
2016
Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University / KIPAC
Luke Zoltan Kelley
2016
Astrophysics Research Fellow
Harvard University
Gongjie Li
2016
Assistant Professor
Georgia Tech
Dylan Nelson
2016
Postdoctoral Fellow
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Garching
Vicente Rodrigues-Gomez
2016
Postdoctoral Fellows 
Space Telescope Science Institute
Laura Schaefer
2016
Assistant Professor
Stanford
Yucong Zhu
2016
Quantitative Analyst
D.E.Shaw Group
Nathan Sanders
2014
Senior Director of Quantitative Analysis
Legendary Entertainment
Paul Torrey
2014
Postdoctoral Fellow
MIT
Rebekah Dawson
2013
Assistant Professor
Penn State University
Diego Munoz
2013
Research Associate 
Cornell University
Tony Pan
2013
Princial Scientists
Invention Science Fund
Robert Penna
2013
Postdoctoral Fellow
M.I.T.
Gregory Snyder
2013
Postdoctoral Fellow
Space Telescope Science Institute
Nick Stone
2013
Postdoctoral Fellow
Columbia University
Eli Visbal
2013
Postdoctoral Fellow
Columbia University
Gurtina Besla
2012
Assistant Professor
University of Arizona
Laura Blecha
2012
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Maryland
Chris Hayward
2012
Associate Research Scientist
Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics
Tongyan Lin
2012
Postdoctoral Fellow
Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics
Eddie Schlafly
2012
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Meng Su
2012
Postdoctoral Fellow
MIT
Sui Ann Mao
2011
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Robert Marcus
2011
Systems Engineer
Northrup Grumman Corp.
Roman Shcherbakov
2011
Software Engineer
Teradata
Svetlin Tassev
2011
Physics Teacher
Braintree High School, MA
Stephanie Bush
2010
Research Scientist
Industry
Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere
2010
Assistant Professor
Northwestern University
Cesar Fuentes
2010
Assistant Professor
CATA, Universidad de Chile
Joey Munoz
2010
Postdoctoral Fellow
UCSB
Ryan O'Leary
2010
Postdoctoral Fellow
UC Berkeley
Tracey Slatyer
2010
Assistant Professor
M.I.T
Alekandre (Sasha) Tchekhovskoi
2010
Postdoctoral Fellow
UC Berkeley
Miguel de Val Borro
2009
Postdoctoral Fellow
Princeton, HATSouth Survey
Matthew McQuinn
2009
Assistant Professor
University of Washington
Eliza (Miller-Ricci) Kempton
2009
Assistant Professor
Grinnell College
Kaloyan Penev
2009
Associate Research Scholar
Princeton University
Randall Cooper
2008
Data Scientist
Goldman Sachs
Joel Hartman
2008
Associate Research Scholar
Princeton University
Philip Hopkins
2008
Assistant Professor
Caltech
Rebecca Shafee
2008
Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetics
Harvard Medical School
Ryan Hickox
2007
Assistant Professor
Dartmouth College
Oliver Zahn
2007
Executive Director
Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics
Brant Robertson
2006
Associate Professor
University of Arizona
Hannah Jang-Condell
2004
Assistant Professor
University of Wyoming
Feryal Ozel
2002
Professor
University of Arizona
Kristen Menou
1999
Associate Professor
Columbia University
Rosalba Perna
1999
Associate Professor
University of Colorado
Eliot Quataert
1999
Professor, Director
Theoretical Astrophysics Center, UC Berkeley
Ann Esin
1998
Professor, Director
Harvey Mudd College
Rohan Mahadevan
1997
Vice-President
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