Colette Salyk, Associate Professor of Astronomy and Chair of Physics and Astronomy on the Maria Mitchell Chair, has secured a Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) grant award in collaboration with her colleague from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in support of a research program titled “Building on ALMA: a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) legacy survey of the chemical evolution of planet-forming disks.”

This program uses NASA’s JWST—an orbiting infrared observatory—to study chemical evolution in planet-forming disks around young stars. By combining JWST data, which probes the terrestrial planet zone, and archival data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)—which probes the giant planet zone, this program will be able to study the evolution of chemical abundances across all relevant disk radii.

Colette is the creator of the open source “Spectools_ir” modeling codes, which are designed to analyze infrared spectra, including from JWST. She will provide instruction in using these tools and assist in modeling the datasets with so-called slab models, which provide the basic physical parameters of observed molecules. As an expert in the analysis of infrared spectra, and its interpretation in the context of planet formation chemistry, Colette will also participate in the publication of analysis papers based on this dataset.

Read how Colette is part of a team of scientists that has made a breakthrough discovery revealing how planets are formed.