Research

My research focuses on understanding dark matter and galaxy evolution via observations and simulations of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. I am particularly interested in stellar streams, the tidal remnants of Milky Way satellite galaxies and star clusters. I study these systems in large astronomical surveys, like the Dark Energy Survey, Gaia, and soon the Rubin Observatory LSST, and in cosmological and idealized simulations.

Curriculum Vitae

Education & Experience

Assistant Professor, University of Washington Department of Astronomy, 2024 -
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Mellon, 2023 - 2024
Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Kavli, 2021 - 2023
PhD Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 2021
NASA Goddard Postbaccalaureate Researcher, 2014-2015
ScB Astrophysics, Brown University, 2014

Honors & Awards

Rising Stars in Physics, 2022
Infinite Expansion Award, MIT, 2021
Schramm Graduate Student Fellowship, UChicago, 2020 - 2021
William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship, UChicago, 2020 - 2021
University Research Association Visiting Scholars Program, Fermilab, 2018 - 2020
Department of Energy SCGSR Fellowship, 2018 - 2019
Illinois Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship, 2018 - 2019
LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, 2016 - 2018
McCormick Fellowship, UChicago, 2015 - 2017
NASA Rhode Island Space Grant Scholarship, 2012 - 2013
Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award, Brown University, 2012 - 2013

Selected Publications

[1] Nguyen, T., Ou, X., Panithanpaisal, N., Shipp, N. et al. Synthetic Gaia DR3 surveys from the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies 2024, ApJ, 966, 108
[2] Ou, X., Chiti, A., Shipp, N. et al. Signatures of Tidal Disruption of the Hercules Ultrafaint Dwarf Galaxy 2024, ApJ, 966, 33
[3] Shipp, N., Panithanpaisal, N., Necib, L., et al. Streams on FIRE: Populations of Detectable Stellar Streams in the Milky Way and FIRE" 2023, ApJ, 949, 44
[4] Li, T. S., Ji, A. P., Pace, A. B., Erkal, D., Koposov, S. E., Shipp, N., et al. "S5: The Orbital and Chemical Properties of One Dozen Stellar Streams" 2021, ApJ, 928, 30
[5] Tavangar, K., Ferguson, P. S., Shipp, N., et al. "From the Fire: A Deeper Look at the Phoenix Stream" 2021, ApJ, 925, 118
[6] Ferguson, P. S., Shipp, N., Drlica-Wagner, A., et al. "DELVE-ing into the Jet: a thin stellar stream on a retrograde orbit at 30 kpc" 2022, ApJ, 163, 18
[7] Shipp, N., Erkal, D., Drlica-Wagner, A., et al. "Measuring the Mass of the LMC with Stellar Streams Observed by S5" 2021, ApJ 923, 149
[8] Li, T. S., Koposov, S., Erkal, D., Ji, A. P., Shipp, N., et al. "Broken into Pieces: ATLAS and Aliqa Uma as One Single Stream" 2021, ApJ, 911, 149
[9] Shipp, N., Price-Whelan, A., Tavangar, K., et al. "Discovery of Extended Tidal Tails Around the Globular Cluster Palomar 13" 2020, AJ, 160, 244
[10] Li, T. S., Koposov, S., Zucker, D., Lewis, G. F., Kuehn, K., Simpson, J. D., Ji, A. P., Shipp, N., et al. "The Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5): Overview,Target Selection, Data Reduction, Validation, and Early Science" 2019, MNRAS 490,3508
[11] Shipp, N., Li, T. S., Pace, A. B., et al. "Proper Motions of Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey" 2019, ApJ, 885, 3
[12] Drlica-Wagner, A., Mao, Yao-Yuan, ..., Shipp, N., et al. "Probing the Fundamental Nature of Dark Matter with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope" 2019
[13] Shipp, N., Drlica-Wagner, A., Balbinot, E., et al. "Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey" 2018, ApJ, 862, 114

Full list: ADS, arXiv

Outreach, Equity & Inclusion

Co-chair LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration EDI Committee, 2024 - 2026
Co-founder and co-facilitator of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Astronomy (IDEA) at UChicago, 2017 - 2021
Member of Astrobites (Writer, co-chair Diversity Committee, Education Research Coordinator), 2016 - 2021
Lead Instructor for Space Explorers KICP Summer Institute, City of Tomorrow, 2018
Stellar Stream Naming events in Chile and Australia (article), 2018
Presenter for Astronomy Conversations at Adler Planetarium, 2015-2017
Founding member of Astronomy on Tap Chicago, 2015-2017