Dr. Noah Vowell Successfully Defends his Dissertation
This past Wednesday, on March 25th, 2026, former Ph.D. candidate Noah Vowell gave a captivating talk about the work he has done over the past six years here at MSU and at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian on the discovery and characterization of brown dwarfs in his effort to determine how these objects formed. He successfully defended his dissertation, and we are proud to congratulate Dr. Noah Vowell on completing this milestone!
Dr. Vowell began his graduate career in August of 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. While his first two years of grad school looked different than most, Dr. Vowell persevered and with the guidance of his advisor, Dr. Joey Rodriguez, he became a Ph.D. candidate in the Fall of 2022.
The accomplishments of Dr. Vowell extend beyond what he has done within MSU. In 2023 he received a FINNEST award, an extremely competitive graduate student research grant that provided him with three years of funding. He also received the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Predoctoral Fellowship in 2024, which allowed him to work at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for a year under the advisement of Dr. Samuel N. Quinn. The department was sad to see him go but grateful for his return for his final year. As an observer, Dr. Vowell also applied and received several nights of telescope time on the WIYN and CTIO/SMARTS telescopes.
Throughout his time at MSU, Dr. Vowell has been an active participant in the MSU Astronomy and Astrophysics program, serving on the seminar committee, mentoring graduate and undergraduate students, and leading the ongoing research efforts at the MSU Observatory, just to name a few of his contributions. He has been an important part of this department and has made a lasting impression on all the faculty, postdocs, and fellow graduate students.
We are so excited to see what the future holds for Dr. Vowell, and we will continue to cheer him on in his journey within and outside of astronomy. Congratulations again Dr. Vowell!
