With the spring semester in full swing a once prominent face throughout the Castleton College science department has yet to be seen. Associate Professor of Physics, Dr. Catherine Garland, is on a semester-long sabbatical taking on the role of a Visiting Scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.
Out of the Green Mountains and into the heart of New York City, Garland is researching with the Curator of the Department of Astrophysics Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, as well as with researchers from the University of West Virginia, the University of Florida, and the Complutense University of Madrid.
“I am working on a research project studying the cause of star formation in a type of galaxy that was very common when the Universe was half its current age,” she said. “These types of galaxies are very rare now.”
Garland and her team will use this research to write a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Still in the classroom, Garland is based out of the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, where she is working as both a consultant and an educator.
As a consultant she partners with Uncommon Schools in Brooklyn, whose mission is to close the achievement gap and prepare low-income students to graduate from college. Through individual and group professional development sessions with teachers and classroom visits, Garland has been helping to align middle and high school instruction and practices with the newly adopted Next Generation Science Standards.
At Williamsburg she teaches fifth-grade science where she has been infusing engineering topics into the curriculum and co-wrote an article being reviewed for Science and Children Magazine.
Additionally, in the Afterschool Program at the American Museum of Natural History, Garland co-teaches courses for 10th and 11th graders preparing to do independent astrophysics research with an astronomer at the museum.
Garland said she is eager to return in the fall and share all of her experiences with the Castleton community.