Dr. Diana Dragomir's Research Group

Postdoctoral Scholars

David Coria

David is a queer Latino astronomer, stellar spectroscopist, and exoplaneteer. During his PhD at the University of Kansas, David investigated how dwarf star elemental and isotopic abundances can test galactic chemical evolution models and how they correlate to other stellar properties. David also measures volatile abundances (C, N, O) in exoplanet host stars to predict the formation history of their companion exoplanets targeted by JWST and state-of-art ground-based observatories. Outside of research, David enjoys music and currently performs with the Albuquerque Civic Chorus and Encantada: The Band of Enchantment.

Graduate Students

Mallory Harris

Mallory is in the final year of her Ph.D. (woohoo!) at the University of New Mexico, where she focuses on discovering cold planets using the TESS satellite. Her graduate research journey began with the search for single-transit events in TESS data from low-mass stars, leading to the validation of TOI-904 c, the coldest M dwarf planet discovered by TESS to date. For her dissertation, Mallory is developing a pipeline to search for long-period transiting planets orbiting low-mass stars and calculate their occurrence rates. As a Visiting Graduate Research Fellow at Caltech, she also began using TESS' capabilities to search for microlensing events. This effort resulted in the discovery of the first gravitationally bound microlensing world detected by TESS.

Dominic Oddo

Website: https://doddo15.github.io/

Dom (he/him) is a sixth year PhD student with a primary research focus in transiting circumbinary planets (CBPs) and a NASA FINESST Future Investigator. CBPs are exoplanets orbiting tight binary stellar systems, and they are an exciting lens to study the formation of both tight binary systems and exoplanets. His PhD dissertation project is to find an occurrence rate for this population of planets with the TESS mission.

Brett Skinner

Brett is a third year graduate student who’s interested in the observation and characterization of long period transiting exoplanets as they are an important next step in the study of the demographics of exoplanets. He is currently working on adding to the growing list of these long period exoplanets in hopes that they can be readily observed and studied by professional and amateur astronomers alike. Outside of research, Brett enjoys swimming and skiing and aspires to be an amateur chess player.

Sarah Stamer

Website: https://sstamer23.github.io/

Sarah is a second year graduate student (and was previously a REU intern in our group!). Her pre-candidacy project consists of analyzing JWST NIRSpec transmission spectra data of the Hot Neptune LTT 9779b to learn more about the atmosphere of this "Hot Neptune Desert" dweller. Stay tuned for updates as she works towards a first-author paper in a year or so! Outside of classes and research, Sarah enjoys reading, watching sports, crocheting, and plays percussion in the Albuquerque Concert Band.

Undergraduate Students

Allison Shaver - UNM sophomore

Sally Shepherd - REU intern, summer 2026

Other

Kaylo

Group mascot and unofficial emotional support animal by day, agility dog extraordinaire by night/weekend.

Previous Group Members

Postdocs

Zahra Essack (2023-2026) - worked on the detection and characterization of long-period exoplanets in TESS data, and the demographics and influence of distant giant planets on their planetary systems.

Graduate Students

Ismael Mireles (UNM PhD 2025) - worked on detecting and characterizing warm Jupiters and their companions using TESS

Sara Jeffreys (UNM MS Physics 2022) - now a Telescope Operations Specialist at New Mexico State University
Mariam Mojtabai (NM Tech MS Physics 2022) - now a PhD student in Radiological Sciences at UT San Antonio

Undergraduate Students

Anna Goodson - REU intern at UNM, summer 2025

Paul Steimle (exchange student at UNM in fall 2023 + spring 2024) - now a PhD student at the University of Göttingen

Michael Bess - graduated spring 2023, now a PhD student in Astronomy at the University of Florida

Sarah Stamer - REU intern in summer 2022, now a PhD student at UNM
Molly Nies - REU intern in summer 2022 and honors thesis advisee, now a F-15 flight test engineer at Boeing