Based in California, PhD student, Dan Peluso waited many years for the stars to align to start his very own exploration of space and social change.
Working as a high school physics teacher, Dan first heard of ҹɫè at an after-school astronomy club meeting in California. Dan told the astrophysicist running the event about the work he wanted to do and his passion for science as a vehicle for social change through education. Dr Carl Pennypacker was running the event, who had worked with at ҹɫè.
'He told me that my research aims could be a great fit for the team working at ҹɫè’s Mount Kent Observatory and their MINERVA-Australis project that’s specifically dealing with exoplanets – planets that orbit a star other than our sun.'
By July 2019, Dan Peluso was a ҹɫè student.
'There’s so much serendipity connected to this whole chain of events, I still can’t believe that I’m studying a multidisciplinary PhD in astrophysics and astronomy education at a university in Australia.' he said.
Now a full-time ҹɫè PhD student and a part time researcher with the as their Unistellar Education Association, he hopes to complete his research project in early 2023.