Connor McClellan
530 McCormick Rd, Room 267
Charlottesville, VA 22904
bcm2vn@virginia.edu
b.connor.mcc@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0002-6040-8281
GitHub Homepage: github.com/connor-mcclellan
Personal Website: connor-mcclellan.github.io
Education
Ph.D. in Astronomy University of Virginia, Expected 2025
M.S. in Astronomy University of Virginia, 2021
B.S. in Physics and Astrophysics University of Florida, 2019
- Summa Cum Laude, Double Major
Professional Employment
Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, VA
Graduate Research Assistant 2021 - Present
Head Teaching Assistant 2020 -
2021
Graduate Teaching Assistant 2019 - 2021
Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, FL
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant 2018
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Array Operations Center, NM
REU Student Researcher 2018
Computing Help Desk, University of Florida, FL
IT Specialist 2017-2018
Publications
First Author
- (in prep) B. C. McClellan, C. Funkhowser, S. W. Davis, and P. Arras, “Numerical Simulation of Exoplanetary RHD Outflows Driven by EUV Heating and Lyman Alpha Radiation Forces”, The Astrophysical Journal
- (in prep) B. C. McClellan, S. W. Davis, M. R. Meza, and N. Weinberg, “Time-Dependent Calculations of Super-Eddington Winds from Neutron Star Photospheric Radius Expansion Bursts”, The Astrophysical Journal
Contributing Author
- (in prep) S. W. Davis, J. M. Stone, P. Chang, B. C. McClellan, B. Mills, E. Rohr, C. White, and C. Yang, “A Monte Carlo Radiation Transfer Module for Athena++,” The Astrophysical Journal
- D. Narayanan, M. J. Turk, T. Robitaille, A. J. Kelly, B. C. McClellan, R. S. Sharma, P. Garg, M. Abruzzo, E. Choi, C. Conroy, B. D. Johnson, B. Kimock, Q. Li, C. C. Lovell, S. Lower, G. C. Privon, J. Roberts, S. Sethuram, G. F. Snyder, R. Thompson, and J. H. Wise 2021, POWDERDAY: Dust Radiative Transfer for Galaxy Simulations, ApJS, 252, 12
- A. Townsend, S. Jeram, S. Eikenberry, Y. Dallilar, A. Garner, A. Gottlieb, C. McClellan, G. P. Sanchez, R. Robshaw, D. Rosenbaum, and A. Spahic 2018, Optical/X-ray Flux Decoupling in MAXI J1820+070, ATel, 11574, 1
Proposals
VLA/19A-254: Disks and Outlows around O-type stars in W51 2018
- Co-I, 15 hours, re-Approved
Research Areas
Modeling Lyα-driven outflows in a Simulated Exoplanet Atmosphere 2020 - Present
Radiation Hydrodynamics of Radius-Expanding Type-I X-ray Bursts 2019 - Present
Developing Dust Radiative Transfer Algorithms for the “Powderday” Code Library 2019
Time-Series Analysis of Ultramagnetic Variable Stars 2018 - 2019
The YSO population of W51 at high resolution 2018
Spectral Features of Quasar Dust Absorbers 2016 - 2018
Training
Flatiron Institute CCA Fluid Dynamics Summer School 2023
NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, Ames Research Center 2022
Science Collaborator
McCormick Observatory 2021
Telescope Operator
Apache Point Observatory 2019
Approved User
Service and Outreach
UVA Astronomy Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee 2020 - 2023
Co-Founder, Graduate Student Representative
Central Virginia Governor’s School Mentorship Program 2020 - 2023
Lead Project Mentor for Astronomy
LGBTQ+ Astro Grads 2020 -
Present
Co-Organizer
Public Night At Historic McCormick Observatory 2019 - 2024
Lead Observer
Univ. of Florida Astronomy and Astrophysics Society 2017 - 2019
Treasurer, Ambassador
Univ. of Florida Women in Science Fair 2018
Co-Organizer for Astronomy, Volunteer
Software
Athena++: https://github.com/PrincetonUniversity/athena Developer
Contributions: Monte Carlo Resonance Scattering and Modified Random Walk
Dendrocat: https://dendrocat.readthedocs.io
Lead Developer
Detects and catalogs sources in radio images, enabling photometry
Powderday: https://powderday.readthedocs.io
Developer
Dust radiative transfer to produce realistic spectral energy distributions
Software-Related Skills
Python (9 years experience)
MPI,astropy,matplotlib,scipy- Image processing pipeline development
- Interactive data visualization
- Contributions to
POWDERDAYdust radiative transfer code
C++ (5 years experience)
- Athena++ development
- Monte Carlo radiative transfer
- Data backend for integration with
MESA - Computational fluid dynamics problem design
- 3D data visualization
- OpenGL (2 years experience)
- GPU / Compute Shader programming
git (9 years experience)
- Software and research pipeline version control
- Large collaboration project development
github actions- automated deployment of software and websites
Linux OS (9 years experience)
bashcommand line, scripting- High-performance computing
- NASA Pleiades
- University of Virginia Rivanna HPC
- University of Florida HiPerGator
- Archlinux, Docker containers
GNU Make, Makefile (3 years experience)
- Research pipeline engineering
- Software deployment
- Project design, reproducibility
Blender (11 years experience)
- Volume rendering of 3D simulation data
- 3D modeling
- Scientific diagram design
Teaching
ASTR 4140/5140: Advanced Research Methods (TA) 2021
Head Teaching Assistant for UVA Astronomy 2020 - 2021
ASTR 2110: Introduction to Astrophysics I (TA, Lecturer) 2019 - 2020
AST 4723: Observational Techniques for Astronomy (TA) 2018
Advising
High School Research Mentorship
Emilee Stonelake 2022 - 2023
Hydrodynamic Simulations of Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Aaron Dendy 2022 - 2023
A Numerical Model of Magentized Bondi Accretion
Asia Hubbard 2021 -
2022
The Thin Disk Accretion Model in GR
Trent Brooks 2021 -
2022
Numerical Analysis of the Newtonian Thin Disk Model
Brian Cate 2020 - 2021
Simulated Spectra of Accreting Black Holes
Talks
Radiating Fluids in the Atmospheres of Stars and Planets April 19, 2024
Bob Rood Memorial Research Symposium - NRAO, Charlottesville VA
Athena++ Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer May 11, 2023
Athena++ Developer Meeting - Center for Computational Astrophysics, New York NY
A Novel Solution to an Old Problem in Lyman Alpha Radiative Transfer
Jun. 15, 2022
240th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society - Pasadena CA
High-Mass Star Formation in Protoclusters of W51 Jan. 9, 2019
233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society - Seattle WA
High-Mass Star Formation in Protoclusters of W51 Aug. 1, 2019
NRAO Array Operations Center - Soccoro NM
Time-Series Analysis of Ultramagnetic Variable Stars in PRESTO Mar. 22, 2018
University Scholars Program Symposium - University of Florida, FL
Awards
QVA Wavelength Scholarship 2024
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program 2021
Honorable Mention
Inaugural Lead Major in Astrophysics 2019
University of Florida Class of 2019 Commencement Ceremony
University of Florida Most Outstanding Senior Thesis Award 2019
University Scholars Program 2017 -
2018
Undergraduate Research Scholarship
Anderson Scholar with Highest Distinction 2017
East Coast Charitable Foundation Scholarship 2015 - 2019
Florida Academic Scholars Award 2015 - 2019