Rosemary McNaughton comes to Dickinson College from the University of Toronto, where she is finishing her Ph.D. in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She received her M.Sc. there in 1998, and her bachelor's degrees in physics and music from M.I.T. in 1997. Her thesis research has been in theoretical analysis and simulations of the long-term dynamical stability of asteroids in our solar system and their part in the formation and evolution of the solar system. As an observer, she has measured distances to large clouds of atomic hydrogen to confirm that these particular clouds are actually inside our galaxy and not gigantic clouds external to the Milky Way. Following on from this work, she has been mentoring a high school student in his research on the possibility of star formation in these clouds, which he presented with much success at the 2003 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Her commitment to science education has led her to be an active teacher throughout graduate school, and a contributor to public understanding of science through talks, interviews, and her own science writing.
Rosemary was recently married to a theoretical cosmologist, Gary Felder, who uses very different time steps in his computer simulations (10^-38 seconds as opposed to her 20 days) and speaks in terms of Planck lengths to her AU. Together they also enjoy travel, volleyball, scuba diving, vegetarian cooking, and are considering moving into a co-housing community in Northampton, MA, where Gary is on the physics faculty at Smith College. In an alternate universe, Rosemary is an operatic mezzo-soprano. In this one, she just hopes to keep music in her life for good, and work on getting some solo gigs and a chance to study opera in Italy!