# 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 Graduate Students ## Postdoctoral Fellows Sort 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](https://physics.gatech.edu/user/gongjie-li) 2018 Assistant Professor Georgia Tech Ilse Cleeves 2018 Assistant Professor University of Virginia [Xuening Bai](http://astro.tsinghua.edu.cn/~xbai/) 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](http://physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/dmilisav.php) 2017 Assistant Professor Purdue University [Sayan Chakraborti](https://chakraborti.com/about/) 2016 Researcher Renaissance Technologies LLC Cora Dvorkin 2016 Associate Professor Harvard University, Dept. of Physics [Yanfei Jiang](https://www.simonsfoundation.org/team/yan-fei-jiang/) 2016 Associate Research Scientist, Planet Formation CCA, Flatiron Institute [Lorenzo Sironi](http://user.astro.columbia.edu/~lsironi/Site/Home.html) 2016 Assistant Professor Columbia University [Annalisa Pillepich](http://www.mpia.de/gc-theory) 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](https://galaxies.ucr.edu/) 2015 Associate Professor UC, Riverside [Konstantin Batygin](http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kbatygin/Home.html) 2014 Professor Caltech [Simeon Bird](http://sbird.github.io/) 2014 Professor UC Riverside [Shy Genel](https://users.flatironinstitute.org/~sgenel/) 2014 Associate Research Scientist The Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics [Smadar Naoz](http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~snaoz/) 2014 Associate Professor UCLA Olek Sadowski 2014 Senior Quantitative Researcher Akuna Capital [Molly Swanson](https://mollyswanson.weebly.com/) 2014 Physics and Math Teacher Art of Problem Solving Academy, Lexington [Mark Vogelsberger](http://space.mit.edu/people/vogelsberger-mark) 2014 Associate Professor M.I.T. [Tassos Fragos](http://www.tassosfragos.com/) 2013 Assistant Professor Geneva Observatory, University of Geneva [Bence Kocsis](http://sns.ias.edu/~bkocsis/) 2013 Associate Professor Oxford University Marc Metchnik 2013 [Matthew Walker](http://www.cmu.edu/physics/people/faculty/walker.html) 2013 Associate Professor Carnegie Mellon University [Charlie Conroy](http://scholar.harvard.edu/cconroy/home) 2012 Professor Harvard University [Elena D'Onghia](http://www.astro.wisc.edu/our-people/faculty/donghia-elena/) 2012 Professor University of Wisconsin, Madison [Anna Frebel](http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/frebel_anna.html) 2012 Professor M.I.T. [Lijun Gou](http://sourcedb.naoc.cas.cn/en/enaoexpert/201308/t20130802_3908129.html) 2012 Professor National Astronomical Observatories of China [Patrik Jonsson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/astropatrik) 2012 Senior GNC Engineer Space-X [Kaitlin Kratter](https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/kaitlin-kratter) 2012 Associate Professor Univ. of Arizona [Stella Offner](https://cns.utexas.edu/directory/item/3118-offner-stella?Itemid=349) 2012 Associate Professor University of Texas at Austin [Asaf Pe'er](http://www.physics.ucc.ie/apeer/) 2012 Professor University College Cork, Ireland [Hagai Perets](http://physics.technion.ac.il/~hperets/) 2012 Associate Professor Technion, Israel [Darin Raggozine](https://www.physics.byu.edu/department/directory/ragozzine) 2012 Associate Professor BYU [Yue Shen](http://www.astro.illinois.edu/people/shenyue) 2012 Associate Professor University of Illinois [Debora Sijacki](http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/people/Debora.Sijacki) 2012 Assistant Professor University of Cambridge, UK Svetlin Tassev 2012 Physics Teacher Braintree High School, MA [Matija Cuk](http://www.seti.org/users/matija-cuk) 2011 Research Scientist SETI Institute [Eric Hallman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-hallman-7600389) 2011 Internal Consultant Ab Initio Software [Mario Juric](http://research.majuric.org/wp/) 2011 Professor University of Washington [Uri Keshet](http://www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/15188/) 2011 Associate Professor Ben-Gurion University [Akshay Kulkarni](https://www.linkedin.com/in/akkulkarni) 2011 Software Engineer Microsoft, Inc [Jifeng Liu](https://www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/15280/) 2011 Principal Astronomer National Astronomical Observatories of China [Jonathan Pritchard](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.pritchard) 2011 Senior Lecturer Imperial College London, England [Yuval Birnboim](http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~yuval/) 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 Sort 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](https://pmocz.github.io/) 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](http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/users/mdrout) 2016 Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow Carnegie Observatories Douglas Ferrer 2016 Robotics Software Engineer iRobot [Gregory Green](http://greg.ory.gr/een) 2016 Postdoctoral Fellow Stanford University / KIPAC Luke Zoltan Kelley 2016 Astrophysics Research Fellow Harvard University [Gongjie Li](http://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/people/gongjie-li) 2016 Assistant Professor Georgia Tech [Dylan Nelson](http://wwwmpa.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~dnelson/) 2016 Postdoctoral Fellow Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Garching [Vicente Rodrigues-Gomez](http://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/people/vicente-rodriguez-gomez) 2016 Postdoctoral Fellows Space Telescope Science Institute Laura Schaefer 2016 Assistant Professor Stanford [Yucong Zhu](http://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/people/yucong-zhu) 2016 Quantitative Analyst D.E.Shaw Group [Nathan Sanders](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanesanders) 2014 Senior Director of Quantitative Analysis Legendary Entertainment [Paul Torrey](http://space.mit.edu/people/torrey-paul) 2014 Postdoctoral Fellow MIT [Rebekah Dawson](http://www.personal.psu.edu/rxd44/) 2013 Assistant Professor Penn State University [Diego Munoz](http://astro.cornell.edu/~dmunoz/) 2013 Research Associate Cornell University [Tony Pan](http://modernelectron.com/team_member/tony-pan/) 2013 Princial Scientists Invention Science Fund [Robert Penna](http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/pappalardo/penna_robert.html) 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow M.I.T. [Gregory Snyder](http://www.stsci.edu/~gsnyder/) 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow Space Telescope Science Institute [Nick Stone](http://www.astro.columbia.edu/profile?uid=nstone) 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow Columbia University [Eli Visbal](http://www.astro.columbia.edu/profile?uid=visbal) 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow Columbia University [Gurtina Besla](https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/gurtina-besla) 2012 Assistant Professor University of Arizona [Laura Blecha](http://www.astro.umd.edu/~lblecha/UMD/Home.html) 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow University of Maryland [Chris Hayward](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~chayward/) 2012 Associate Research Scientist Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics [Tongyan Lin](http://www-theory.lbl.gov/~tongylin/) 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics [Eddie Schlafly](http://www.mpia.de/homes/schlafly/) 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Meng Su](http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/pappalardo/su_meng.html) 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow MIT [Sui Ann Mao ](http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~mao/Welcome.html) 2011 Postdoctoral Fellow University of Wisconsin - Madison [Robert Marcus](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~rmarcus/) 2011 Systems Engineer Northrup Grumman Corp. [Roman Shcherbakov](http://www.astroman.org/) 2011 Software Engineer Teradata [Svetlin Tassev](http://web.astro.princeton.edu/people/post-docs) 2011 Physics Teacher Braintree High School, MA [Stephanie Bush](http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~sbush/home/aboutme.html) 2010 Research Scientist Industry [Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere](http://www.physics.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/claude-andre-faucher-giguere.html) 2010 Assistant Professor Northwestern University [Cesar Fuentes](http://www.cata.cl/investigador_en.php?id=107) 2010 Assistant Professor CATA, Universidad de Chile [Joey Munoz](http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~jamunoz/) 2010 Postdoctoral Fellow UCSB [Ryan O'Leary](http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~oleary/cv.html) 2010 Postdoctoral Fellow UC Berkeley [Tracey Slatyer](https://science.mit.edu/research/faculty/slatyer-tracy-robyn) 2010 Assistant Professor M.I.T [Alekandre (Sasha) Tchekhovskoi](https://sites.google.com/site/atchekho/) 2010 Postdoctoral Fellow UC Berkeley [Miguel de Val Borro](http://scholar.princeton.edu/valborro/home) 2009 Postdoctoral Fellow Princeton, HATSouth Survey [Matthew McQuinn](http://faculty.washington.edu/mcquinn/Welcome.html) 2009 Assistant Professor University of Washington [Eliza (Miller-Ricci) Kempton](https://www.grinnell.edu/users/kemptone) 2009 Assistant Professor Grinnell College [Kaloyan Penev](http://web.astro.princeton.edu/people/kaloyan-penev) 2009 Associate Research Scholar Princeton University [Randall Cooper](https://www.linkedin.com/in/randall-cooper-156b591b) 2008 Data Scientist Goldman Sachs [Joel Hartman](http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~jhartman/) 2008 Associate Research Scholar Princeton University [Philip Hopkins](http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~phopkins/Site/Welcome.html) 2008 Assistant Professor Caltech [Rebecca Shafee](http://rebeccashafee.com/) 2008 Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetics Harvard Medical School [Ryan Hickox](http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hickox/) 2007 Assistant Professor Dartmouth College [Oliver Zahn](http://bccp.berkeley.edu/people/oliver-zahn/) 2007 Executive Director Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics [Brant Robertson](http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/about_department/people/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=brant) 2006 Associate Professor University of Arizona [Hannah Jang-Condell](http://physics.uwyo.edu/~hannah/) 2004 Assistant Professor University of Wyoming [Feryal Ozel](http://xtreme.as.arizona.edu/~fozel/) 2002 Professor University of Arizona [Kristen Menou](http://user.astro.columbia.edu/~kristen/Homepage.html) 1999 Associate Professor Columbia University [Rosalba Perna](http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/rosalba/) 1999 Associate Professor University of Colorado [Eliot Quataert](http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~eliot/) 1999 Professor, Director Theoretical Astrophysics Center, UC Berkeley [Ann Esin](http://physics.hmc.edu/faculty/esin/) 1998 Professor, Director Harvey Mudd College [Rohan Mahadevan](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/about) 1997 Vice-President PayPal