Stellar occultations occur when a foreground solar system object passes in front of a background star, casting a small shadow observable for a brief amount of time. These shadows can be observed when they fall on the Earth and proper placement of telescopes perpendicular to the shadow’s motion can be combined to provide valuable information about the body’s size and shape. These events have also been used to detect previously unknown satellites and rings around small bodies as well as topographic features on objects in the distant reaches of the solar system. The beauty of stellar occultations is that anyone with a telescope and a CCD imager can participate, since the stars being occulted are much brighter than the small bodies occulting them. I will discuss recent exciting stellar occultation results and how to get involved with future events.

Bio: I first knew that I wanted to be an astronomer in August 2003, during heightened interest in the close approach of Mars to the Earth. I entered college a few years later at the University of Maryland as an Astronomy major and earned my PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2016. For almost 7 years now I have worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, providing support for solar system observations with the James Webb Space Telescope. My research focuses on studies of Pluto and other trans-Neptunian objects, with specific investigations into surface compositions, rotation periods, satellite orbits, and constraining physical properties through stellar occultations.