Dr. Isabel L. Colman

she/her

Astrophysicist · Faculty at NYU Liberal Studies

Grayscale image of a woman pointing a camera at her reflection. I'm an astrophysicist hailing from Sydney, Australia, the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I currently live and work in Manhattan, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape.

I'm a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU Liberal Studies, an interdisciplinary undergraduate college. I'm also the PI on a grant that was selected for funding as part of NASA's ROSES 2023 call for proposals, under the Astrophysics Data Analysis program. Prior to joining LS, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History (2021–2024). I have a PhD in Astronomy (2016–2020) and a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) with Honours in Physics and a second major in mathematics (2012–2015), both from the University of Sydney. (An honours program, in Australia, is a one-year intensive study course equivalent to a Masters degree.)

I specialize in developing innovative data science approaches to solving problems in stellar astrophysics. I use data from NASA's Kepler, K2, and TESS missions to identify and analyze variable stars — anything where you can detect changes in brightness over time. This has led me to study asteroseismology, stellar rotation, and binary star systems, and now I'm embarking on a variability survey of the Magellanic Clouds with TESS data.

I also have a broad range of academic experience outside of research. In 2020, I worked as a contractor for Lightkurve, a Python package for TESS/Kepler data analysis. I gained experience as a professional software developer, and wrote user tutorials. I've mentored students and taught concepts in astronomy, physics, programming, and numerics to an undergraduate audience. I am also passionate about making tertiary education accessible, and during my graduate studies I worked part-time as a scribe, reader, and invigilator for students who required special accommodations for exams. I'm enthusiastic about scientific writing, and I've peer reviewed extensively.

Outside of my work, I'm a classically-trained choral singer and an avid film photographer (I use a Canon F-1, if you're curious). I'm into art, architecture, and design. This webpage is modeled after the work of Pelican Books designers in the 60s and 70s.

PhD — The Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney (2016–20); supervised by Timothy Bedding and Daniel Huber

PhD thesis: Pixels, photometry, and population studies: variable stars across four years of Kepler data, accepted June 2020

BSc (Adv) (Hons. Physics) — University of Sydney (2012–15); double major in physics and applied mathematics

As first author

Methods for the detection of stellar rotation periods in individual TESS sectors and results from the Prime mission, AJ, April 2024

The Kepler IRIS Catalog: Image Subtraction Light Curves for 9150 Stars in and around the Open Clusters NGC 6791 and NGC 6819, ApJS, February 2022

Evidence for compact binary systems around Kepler red giants, MNRAS, August 2017

As a contributing author

Evidence of Truly Young high-α Dwarf Stars, Yuxi (Lucy) Lu et al., submitted to AJ

Discovery of post-mass-transfer helium-burning red giants using asteroseismology, Yaguang Li et al., Nature Astronomy, April 2022

Further Evidence of Modified Spin-down in Sun-like Stars: Pile-ups in the Temperature-Period Distribution, Trevor David et al., ApJ, March 2022

A binary with a δ Scuti star and an oscillating red giant: orbit and asteroseismology of KIC 9773821, Simon Murphy et al., MNRAS, August 2021