About Me

Education:
University of California, Santa Cruz
    PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Expected 2030)
University of California, Berkeley
   B.A. in Astrophysics with Honors, B.A. in Music (2024)

Research Interests:
I am interested in multimessenger astrophysics, gravitational waves, and prospects for future gravitational wave observations and events. I am also largely interested in cosmology, compact objects, the Hubble tension, and X-ray binaries.

Publications: List of publications (ADS)

Research

A time-evolving kilonova SED
Working on creating a full, time-evolving spectral energy distribution based on spectra and photomery from the kilonova AT2017gfo associated with the binary neutron star merger gravitational wave event, GW170817.

Detecting prompt and afterglow jet emission of gravitational wave events from LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA and next generation detectors
Paper

Intriguing eclipses and time variability in 47 Tucanae's quiescent low-mass X-ray binary X5
AAS iPoster

Standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant using GW170817 and the latest observations of the electromagnetic counterpart afterglow
Paper

Community

Teaching: I love teaching and I am passionate about accessible astronomy education! I taught a couple different intro to astronomy courses as a TA in undergrad, and loved every second of it. I was also the director of a program called ULAB that helps underrepresented students in academia get research opportunities (Learn more about it here!) .

Outreach: I love doing community outreach and hosting public astronomy events. In undergrad, I was the president of the Undergraduate Astronomy Society at Berkeley, and hosted casual lecture talks with professors, star parties and observing nights, field trips to observatories, and high school outreach science demos! I'm looking forward to getting involved in outreach at UC Santa Cruz.

Equity & Inclusion: DEI in STEM and astronomy is very important to me as a woman of color. I've worked as a climate/DEI committee member and undergraduate representative in the past to help bring equitable policies to astronomy and advocate for my fellow students. I'm excited about getting involved with DEI initiatives at UC Santa Cruz!

Contact

Email: ravkaur@ucsc.edu

Address:
UCO Lick
UC Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064