By Shana SagerThe Daily Northwestern
Between marching band practice and restarting the Northwestern chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon, the national Math Honor Society, Weinberg senior Aaron Lee found time to design evolutionary models of solar systems.
Lee’s work inside and outside the classroom earned him a spot on USA Today’s All-USA College Academic Third Team.
Twenty students were named to each of the first, second and third teams.
For two years, Lee has studied the initial formation processes of solar systems and written his own code to analyze data. From this, he designed models concerning the orbits and evolution of planets in other solar systems. His findings will be published later this year in the Astrophysical Journal.
According to Tracey Wong Briggs, the coordinator of the All-USA Academic and Teacher Teams, the centerpiece of the application is the applicant’s essay describing his or her most outstanding intellectual endeavor.
“We are looking for students who are extending academic knowledge beyond the classroom, beyond getting an ‘A,'” Briggs said.
The program recognizes students for achievements in areas such as academic research, the arts, politics and public service. The team identifies students for what they have achieved as undergrads, not what they hope to do upon graduation.
“I didn’t merely want to do observations,” Lee said. “I can be part of suggesting answers to a much more general picture that will allow us to connect what we see observationally with mathematical models, that we can use to predict where we came from and where we are going in terms of the evolution of the universe.”
When the first planet outside of the Earth’s solar system was discovered nearly a decade ago, scientists found that other solar systems were configured differently, Lee said.
Other solar systems show signs of instability, such as collisions, and to understand why, researchers look at how planets form and evolve, said physics and astronomy Prof. Fred Rasio.
Lee’s research investigates what processes make the planets in our solar system remain in stable orbits while those in other systems do not.
“What makes our solar system so particular?” Lee said. “The thing we have to do now is develop new models to help us figure out what and how these systems came about.”
Rasio advised Lee on the research, which also will serve as his senior thesis in physics.
“Aaron’s research is pretty inspiring. It connects a lot of the human questions,” Rasio said. “The big questions, like, what’s the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe?”
Rasio said he recognized early on that Lee was a top student with excellent technical skills and that he was ready for something “more real” in terms of research.
“I decided I would give him a real project from day one and let him sink or swim,” Rasio said. “He’s been swimming pretty well.”
Reach Shana Sager at [email protected].
