Hello, I am Dominic Ludovici. I graduated from University High School in Morgantown in May of 2007. Currently, I am a Junior undergraduate student studying Physics and Astronomy and working with the Astrophysics Group. I have been working with the Pulsar Group since June 2006. I am also the current president of the WVU Astronomy club and an officer of the Society of Physics Students. I am also serving as the NASA International Year of Astronomy Student Ambassador for West Virginia.
Currently I am working on something a little different then the pulsar work I have been involved with over the past three years! I am working with WSRT data to look at galaxies in neutral hydrogen at the 21cm line. I am imaging the field looking for hydrogen in a galaxy cluster. So far these observations have been going very well and have been showing many new galaxies!
The main area of my work has been with the 610MHz pulsar survey of the Galactic plane using the GMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope). Thus far, this survey has been successful in finding three new radio pulsars! Radio frequency interference has been a problem and I have been working to determine which techniques are best in removing the interference. In March, 2008, I traveled to the GMRT in India to conduct some of the observations.
During June of 2007, I worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia. During my stay there I assisted in taking data for the 350 MHz drift scan pulsar survey. Also during my stay at Green Bank, I re-examined single pulse data from the Parkes Multi-beam survey in order to try to find more Rotating Radio Transients. Returned to Green Bank during the summer of 2008 again to work on more observations and data processing.
I am also working with Stas Edel on a project to monitor magnetars for radio emission.
