
Dr. Kathryn A Plant
Researcher
About
Bio
I am a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow primarily studying high energy cosmic rays. My Ph.D. thesis work focused on building a fast digital signal processing system to observe high energy cosmic rays with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array. Before my Ph.D. at Caltech, I received my bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California at Santa Cruz and then worked on an upgrade to the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope in Australia. My current research uses the instrument that I built for my Ph.D., to search for the highest energy Milky Way cosmic rays. I also work on other cosmic ray and radio signal processing projects. Other than research, I am passionate about combining science education with outdoor education and am very excited to be leading a program this winter as part of the Death Valley National Park Dark Skies Festival.
Education
- Caltech Ph.D. in astrophysics
- UC Santa Cruz B.S. in Physics with a Minor in Mathematics
Research Interests
- High energy cosmic rays
- Radio instrumentation and signal processing
- Remote sensing, signals of opportunity
Achievements
Awards & Recognitions
- Professional Society and External Organization Awards | Caltech | Everhart Distinguished Graduate Student Lecture Award (2023)
- Professional Society Fellowship | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2022)
- Professional Society Fellowship | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2021)
- Professional Society Fellowship | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2019)
- Professional Society Fellowship | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2018)
- Professional Society Fellowship | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2017)
Publications
- Plant, K., Hallinan, G., and Bastian, T., 2024, Radio Emission from the Magnetically Active M Dwarf UV Ceti from 1 to 105 GHz, The Astrophysical Journal, 970, 56, DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad4356
- Hooper, D., and Plant, K., Leptonic Model for Neutrino Emission from Active Galactic Nuclei, 2023, Physical Review Letters, 131, 231001, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.231001
- Plant, K., Romero-Wolf, A., Carvalho, W.,Belov, K., Hallinan, G. , 2021, Updates from the OVRO-LWA: Commissioning a Full-Duty-Cycle Radio-Only Cosmic Ray Detector, PoS ICRC21 204, DOI: 10.22323/1.395.0204
- Plant, K., Hallinan, G., Romero-Wolf, A., Monroe, R., Kocz, J., Nelles, A., Anderson, M., Eastwood, M., D'Addario, L., Woody, D., Lamb, J., Carvalho, W., Belov, K. , 2019, Upgrading the OVRO-LWA for improved cosmic ray detection capabilities, PoS ICRC19 391, DOI: 10.22323/1.358.0391
- Plant, K., Margon, B., Guhathakurta, P., Cunningham, E., Toloba, E., Munn, J., 2016, Runaway Dwarf Carbon Stars as Candidate Supernova Ejecta, The Astrophysical Journal, 833, 232, DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/232