Welcome!

I’m Catherine, an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Utah. I am an observer, which means I use data from telescopes to understand the cosmos. As a stellar archaeologist, I study the chemical compositions of stars to understand how they form, how they synthesize elements, and how our Milky Way disk has evolved into what it looks like today.

I received my PhD in Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin in 2024. I was advised by Prof. Keith Hawkins.

All photography on this website was taken by me at McDonald Observatory in West Texas.

 
A portrait style photo of Catherine Manea. She is wearing a white button down shirt and her hair is in a ponytail. She is smiling while looking at the camera.