Introduction

I'm a current fifth-year Astronomy PhD student at New Mexico State University (NMSU), and Graduate Research Assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). I have a BS in Astrophysics, MS in Physics, and MS in Astronomy. My research focuses on both observation and simulation of plasma structures in the solar atmopshere, their contribution to mass/energy transfer between the different regions, and their relation to space weather.
Link to CV

Research

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Graduate Research Assistant - 2023-present

I am currently working as a Graudate Research Assistant at LANL with Dr. Timothy Waters on simulations of thermal instability in coronal loops using Athena++. We are also devloping a robust algprithim to analyze cooling functions for thermal instability. This project was presented at the 11th Coronal Loop Workshop in Tenerife and will soon be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Post-Masters Student - 2019-2020

After earning a master’s degree, I worked for a year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a research assistant. My project was to use machine learning techniques and particle data from the Air Force’s GPS constellation to create a geomagnetic cutoff model. This model predicts how far highly energetic particles from the Sun can penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere. I was also responsible for contributing to the open-source Python library Spacepy.

New Mexico State University

My research with NMSU is to study jet-like structures called spicules at the boundary of coronal holes and their role in mass/energy transfer in the solar atmosphere. Using data from the Swedish Solar Telescope (SST), NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and Parker Solar Probe (PSP), we are working to track these jets from the surface of the Sun up through the solar atmosphere. By building a statistical database and studying the multi-threaded nature of these spicules, we hope to gain a better understanding of how they move plasma through the atmosphere and out into space. We are also looking into the mechanisms that feed these spicules through spectral analysis, 1D numerical simulations, and potential field source surface modeling. I also work closely with the Dunn Solar Telescope.

University of Georgia

My undergraduate research and master’s thesis involved using carbon monoxide (CO) as a hydrogen tracer to study condensed clumps in a diffuse molecular cloud. We used spectral analysis of these structures to explore the processes that shape these cloud boundaries.

Paleoanthropology Fieldwork

As an undergrad I also minored in paleoanthropology. In the summer of 2018, I worked on an excavation site in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya. My research project was to field test a new phytolithic (small micro-fossils) extraction process and use phytolithic analysis to study the earliest controlled use of fire.

Publications

Papers and Articles

T. Waters and A. Stricklan, “Catastrophic cooling in optically thin plasmas,” arXiv e-prints, arXiv:2408.15869, arXiv:2408.15869, Aug. 2024.  doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2408.15869. arXiv: 2408.15869 [astro-ph.SR].

R. Carver, S. K. Morley, A. Stricklan (2019), GPS Constellation Energetic Particle Measurements, IEEE Aerospace 2020 Conference Proceedings, LA-UR-19-31027 [Proceedings]

Stricklan, A. (2019). Isolated Molecular Clumps at the CO-Boundary of a Diffuse Molecular Cloud [Master’s thesis, University of Georgia] [Thesis]

Posters and Presentations

A. Stricklan, T. Waters, “On the analysis of optically thin cooling functions,” 11th Coronal Loops Workshop, poster session, 2024.

A. Stricklan, “Coronal hole jets: A look at these beasts and what feeds them,” American Astronomical Society Meeting, poster session, 2023.

S. Morley, Y. Chen, M. Carver, A. Stricklan, and M. Engel, “Monitoring and Diagnosing Solar Energetic Particle Events Using the Global Positioning System Constellation,” American Geophysical Meeting, poster session, 2022.



A. Stricklan, “Physical properties of coronal hole jets,” New Mexico State University Special Research Topics, oral presentation, 2021.

A. Stricklan, S. Morley, and M. Carver, “Using gps particle measurements to model geomagnetic cutoff,” American Meteorological Society Conference, poster/oral presentation, 2021.

A. Stricklan, “The search for early fire: A phytolithic study of site fxjj 20 ab,” Society of American Archeology, poster presentation, 2019.

Outreach

I love sharing astronomy with the general public and connecting with students in their love of science and future in STEM.