Catherine Manea

I’m Catherine Manea, an incoming NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University (2024-2027). I am an observer and a spectroscopist with particular interest in the Milky Way disk. As a stellar archaeologist, I use the chemical compositions of stars to answer fundamental questions about star formation, our galaxy’s evolution, and the origin of the elements in the periodic table. I enjoy taking my own data as well as leveraging public spectroscopic survey data.

I completed my PhD in Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 2024 with Prof. Keith Hawkins as my advisor.

Feel free to browse the tabs above to learn more about my research, science communication, and background! You are welcome to contact me via email.

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