Sarafina Nance

Sarafina Nance is an American science communicator who is an astrophysics PhD research student at the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in supernovae and cosmology. Nance is known for her use of social media, in particular Twitter, where she discusses astrophysics and activism. She is also an advocate for women's health and STEM.

Sarafina Nance
Sarafina Nance interviewed by James Davenport in 2020
Born
Austin, Texas
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley
University of Texas at Austin
OccupationAstrophysicist

Early life and education

Nance grew up in Austin, Texas. She became interested in the solar system as a child, and used to listen to StarDate on the radio on her way home from school.[1] She has said that her St. Stephen's Episcopal School's high school physics teacher, Frank Mikan, encouraged her love of space science.[1]

In 2016, Nance received a dual B.S. degree in physics and astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. Her honors thesis was titled "A Theoretical Investigation of Supernovae Progenitors". Her advisor was J. Craig Wheeler.[2] There she used asteroseismology to understand stars that were about to undergo a supernova.[3] Her research focussed on Betelgeuse.[1] Whilst an undergraduate student at the UT Austin, Nance was named a Dean's Honour scholarship and took part in an National Science Foundation summer programme at Harvard University.[1]

Career

In 2017, Nance moved to the University of California, Berkeley for her graduate studies, where she investigates supernovae and uses them as a means to study both the make-up and ultimate fate of the universe. Here she earned a M.S. master's degree in astronomy, before beginning a doctoral programme.[1] In particular, Nance studies the evolutionary state of Betelgeuse.[4] She works with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Centre for Computational Cosmology to use supercomputers to build model the explosions of supernovae in their final stages. She has discussed her research with the BBC and National Geographic Society.[5][6] She has discussed dark matter on NPR.[7]

Science communication

During the first year of her undergraduate degree Nance worked as an intern at the McDonald Observatory.[1] After starting her doctoral degree, Nance took to her science communication online.[4] She primarily makes use of Twitter to discuss current astrophysics research and her experiences as a woman in physics. One of her viral tweets, which highlighted how important failure was in science, was picked up by Sundar Pichai.[8]

Nance is an activist for women's health. In her early 20s it was identified that she had inherited the BRCA2 gene from her father, which is known to be a predictor of breast cancer.[9] Nance used a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to cover the cost of a double mastectomy, and her social media platform to advocate for early and frequent testing as well as preventative medicine.[10][11][12] After searching for the best local surgeons, Nance identified Anne Peled, a Californian reconstructive surgeon who was also a survivor of breast cancer.[9] Nance underwent the surgery in 2019.[9]

Selected publications
  • Nance, Sarafina (2 May 2016). A Theoretical Investigation of Supernovae Progenitors (PDF) (B.S.). University of Texas at Austin.
  • Wheeler, J. Craig; Nance, S.; Diaz, M.; Smith, S. G.; Hickey, J.; Zhou, L.; Koutoulaki, M.; Sullivan, J. M.; Fowler, J. M. (1 March 2017). "The Betelgeuse Project: constraints from rotation". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 465 (3): 2654–2661. doi:10.1093/MNRAS/STW2893. Wikidata ()
  • Nance, S; Sullivan, J M; Diaz, M; Wheeler, J Craig (September 2018). "The Betelgeuse Project II: asteroseismology". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 479 (1): 251–261. arXiv:1805.10347. doi:10.1093/MNRAS/STY1418. Wikidata ()

References
  1. Newman, Shawna (2 March 2020). "Highlighting Women in STEM: Sarafina Nance, Supernovae Scientist & Cosmologist, Astrophysics Ph.D. Candidate". Fastweb.
  2. Nance, Sarafina (2 May 2016). A Theoretical Investigation of Supernovae Progenitors (PDF) (B.S.). University of Texas at Austin.
  3. "Sarafina Nance - Astronomy Department". University of California Berkeley, Department of Astronomy. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  4. "Keynote Speaker: Sarafina Nance". Women in Space Conference. May 2020.
  5. Drake, Nadia (26 December 2019). "A giant star is acting strange, and astronomers are buzzing". National Geographic.
  6. "Daya daga cikin manyan taurari na 'dab da yin bindiga'". BBC News Hausa (in Hausa). 1 February 2020.
  7. Sofia, Maddie; Nance, Sarafina (4 May 2020). "Short Wave: What Is Dark Energy? Physicists Aren't Even Sure". NPR.
  8. "Google CEO Sundar Pichai finds astrophysicist's viral post about scoring zero marks in exam 'inspiring'; Twitter responds to thread". Firstpost. 24 November 2019.
  9. Butterly, Amelia (4 March 2020). "Health: 'I have sensation in my breasts again'". BBC News.
  10. Nance, Sarafina (21 November 2019). "I lost my breasts, but an early test saved my life". San Francisco Chronicle.
  11. Rasmus, Allie (27 November 2019). "26-year-old Bay Area woman opts for preventative double mastectomy". KTVU FOX 2.
  12. "BBC Radio 4 — Woman's Hour, The power of crying, Hubble astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, Children and Coronavirus". Woman's Hour, BBC. 7 March 2020.
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