I’m a graduate student writer for Astrobites, a collaboration of graduate students that takes scientific articles and condenses them down into bite-size pieces that the public can understand (our target audience being undergraduates). I’ve been writing for Astrobites since January 2023 and am also an active member of the Climate Change and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committees. You can find my Astrobite articles here!
I’m a member of the MIT Sidewalk Astrogazers organization and am currently co-leading the organization in 2023. Our group has 5 telescopes, include 3 dobsonians, 1 solar (H$\alpha$), and 1 Unistellar eVscope that we bring to the sidewalks of Cambridge and Boston to show the public! We also partner with local organizations, like the MIT Museum, to host specific events with stargazing. Check out our website for more details!
I’m a member of the organizing committee for Boston’s chapter of Astronomy on Tap, which features events at local bars, breweries, and coffee shops where astronomy experts give public talks, followed by space-themed trivia. I’ve helped host events since our chapter started up again in 2022. Check out our event listings or keep an eye on our social media if you’re interested in joining for one of our events!
I’m an active member of the Grads Advising Graduate Admissions (GAGA) group in the MIT Department of Physics, whose role is to provide the grad student perspective and advice on the admissions process. As part of GAGA, I help run the Physics Graduate Application Assistance (PhysGAAP) program, which aims to provide additional information and help to prospective applications to the MIT Physics PhD program. This program consists of yearly webinars, held in the fall and the recordings posted to our website, and a 1-on-1 mentorship program for students to get individualized help on their application. The motivation behind this program was to reduce the barriers for application to the MIT Physics PhD program and address the underrepresentation of students from historically excluded communities. You can read more about this initiative on the MIT Physics website or in this Astrobite.
During the summers of 2017 and 2019, I was a public outreach volunteer in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Department at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. While there, I developed and regularly ran a “cart program”, where I would teach museum guests about dark matter using visual aids and 3D printed, hands-on tools. I also ran weekly solar observing sessions and supervised a local high school student in the development of another cart program and solar observing.
Short description of portfolio item number 1
Short description of portfolio item number 2
Masterson, M., Kara, E., Ricci, C., et al. 2022, ApJ, 934, 35.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022arXiv220605140M/abstract
Masterson, M. & Reynolds, C.S. 2022, ApJ, 936, 66.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022arXiv220710686M/abstract
Masterson, M., McDonald, M., Ansarinejad, B., et al. 2023, ApJ, 944, 164.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023ApJ...944..164M/abstract
Masterson, M., Kara, E., Pasham, D., et al. 2023, ApJL, 945, L34.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023ApJ...945L..34M/abstract
Masterson, M., De, K., Panagiotou, C., Kara, E., et al. 2024, accepted for publication in ApJ
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024arXiv240101403M/abstract
Masterson, M., Kara, E., Panagiotou, C., et al. 2025, Nature, in press
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250101581M/abstract
Find my contributed talk to the XMM-Newton 2022 Science Workshop on Black Hole Accretion on YouTube here! My talk begins around 7:09:00 (or start around 6:38:40 to see a wonderful introduction to 1ES 1927+654 by my collaborator, Claudio Ricci).
The poster I presented at the 2023 HEAD meeting can be found here.
I spoke at the 2024 UCSB KITP Conference on Anticipating the Rising Tide of Tidal Disruption Events: Theory and Observations about my work on a new population of infrared-selected TDEs. You can watch my talk online here!
Middle/High School Classes, MIT Educational Studies Program, 2021
During the spring and summer of 2021, I was a volunteer teacher for two events through the MIT Educational Studies Program. In one of these events, I taught 30 middle school students about supermassive black holes and active galaxies during a single hour-long class. The other event consisted of three hour-long classes focused on various topics in black hole astrophysics, aimed at late high school students and co-taught with another MIT astrophysics PhD student.
Undergraduate Course, MIT, 2022
During the Fall 2022 semester, I TA’d 12.410/8.287 at MIT, the undergraduate course on observational techniques of optical astronomy. The course involved students learning about the basics of observational astronomy and designing, executing, and writing-up their own observational astronomy project. As the TA, I took students to Wallace Astrophysical Observatory (WAO) in Westford, MA for weekly observing with the 14in and 24in telescopes, and I also assisted with project design, data analysis, and write-up.
Undergraduate Course, MIT, 2023
As part of MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP, or essentially a January term), I was the TA for 12.411, an undergraduate astronomy field camp that took place at Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife. I assisted students with 8 nights of observing on 4 different telescopes (0.6-1.5m) at the observatory, as well as with data analysis, interpretation, and final report writing. At the end of the three week long field camp, the students’ presented their work at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), which was highlighted by the IAC in this article.