CV
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD Candidate in Astrophysics.
Harvard University
B.A. in Astrophysics and Physics.
Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors in Field.
Cambridge, MA
August 2018 - Present
Cambridge, MA
May 2018
Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Instrument Scientist for WINTER
Advisor: Dr. Robert A. Simcoe
Major contributions to the design and construction of WINTER, a new 1-meter robotic telescope and infrared camera.
Wrote all custom firmware and software for sensor readout and GPU-optimized data preprocessing of new InGaAs sensors.
Tested custom sensors and readout electronics.
Led stray-light optical analysis with non-sequential ray-tracing. Contributed to optical design and alignment.
Wrote custom scheduling software for the robotic telescope.
Led a collaboration to produce detailed simulations of WINTER’s performance for kilonova discovery.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Advisor: Dr. Brian McLeod
Designed optics and mechanics for the active optics system of the Giant Magellan Telescope.
Constructed and tested a dispersed fringe sensor prototype on the Magellan Clay Telescope.
University of California, Irvine
Advisor: Dr. Simona Murgia
Analyzed dwarf spheroidal galaxies to search for signatures of self-annihilating dark matter.
Large Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO at Caltech)
Advisors: Dr. Gabriele Vajente, Dr. Alan Weinstein
Searched for and characterized crackling noise in the Advanced LIGO suspensions.
University of California, Irvine
Advisor: Dr. Aaron Barth
Analyzed data from Hubble to classify black holes in elliptical galaxies for ALMA and Hubble proposal.
Approved for telescope time on ALMA.
Cambridge, MA
August 2018 - Present
Cambridge, MA
Sep 2016 - May 2018
Irvine, CA
Feb 2017 - May 2017
Pasadena, CA
June 2016 - Aug 2016
Irvine, CA
June 2013 - Aug 2013
Awards and Fellowships
Elihu Aaron Boldt Fellowship, MIT, 2020-2021
Bruno Rossi Graduate Fellowship in Astrophysics, MIT, 2019-2020
Whiteman Fellowship, MIT, 2018-2019
Leo Goldberg Prize for Senior Thesis in Astrophysics, Harvard CfA, 2018
John Harvard Scholar, Harvard University, 2017
Robert Tucker Hayes Cornerstone Scholar, Harvard University, 2017
Victor Blanco Fellowship, National Society of Hispanic Physicists and LIGO, 2016
Outreach and Service
Co-director, equipment chair, of MIT sidewalk astronomy outreach: Astrogazers, 2018-present.
MIT GSC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow, 2021-2022.
MIT Astrophysics Faculty Search, Grad Student Search Committee 2023.
Peer reviewer for Experimental Astronomy, 2023.
MIT Physics Admissions Advisory Council, 2020, 2023.
Mentor for MIT undergraduate women in physics, 2018-2022.
Co-founder and co-president of the Astrophysical Student Society at Harvard, 2015-2018.
Papers
First-author papers:
Frostig, D., et al. 2022. An Infrared Search for Kilonovae with the WINTER Telescope. I. Binary Neutron Star Mergers. ApJ 926 152.
Frostig, D., et al. 2022. Readout and cooling of the WINTER InGaAs camera. Proc. SPIE 12191,
Frostig, D., et al. 2020. Design requirements for the Wide-field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER). Proc. SPIE 1144767.
Frostig, D., et al. 2020. Stray light analysis and reduction for IFU spectrograph LLAMAS. Proc. SPIE 114476E.
Contributing-author papers:
Panagiotou, C., et al. 2023. A luminous dust-obscured Tidal Disruption Event candidate in a star forming galaxy at 42 Mpc. ApJL 948 L5.
Simcoe, R., et al. 2022. Construction update on the Magellan LLAMAS integral field spectrograph. Proc. SPIE 12184OD.
Lourie, N., et al. 2020. The wide-field infrared transient explorer (WINTER). Proc. SPIE 12184.
Hinrichsen, E. et al. 2020. Opto-mechanical design of the Wide-Field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER) fly's eye camera. Proc. SPIE 11479F.
Malonis, D. et al 2020. Detector architecture of the wide-field infrared transient explorer (WINTER) InGaAs camera. Proc. SPIE 114542O.
Furesz, G., et al. 2020. Status update of LLAMAS: a wide field-of-view visible passband IFU for the 6.5m Magellan telescopes. Proc. SPIE 11447.
Kopon, D., et al. 2018. Preliminary on-sky results of the next generation GMT phasing sensor prototype. Proc. SPIE 10703.
Skills
Computer Languages: python, julia, C, IDL, MatLab, DS9, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and more.
Optical Design and Stray Light Modeling: FRED, Zemax.
Optical Metrology: Hexagon coordinate measuring machines (CMM), TriOpics OptiSurf interferometer, Zygo Verifire wavefront interferometer
Firmware Engineering: Verilog and new board testing.
Mechanical Engineering: 100+ hours of shop experience. 2nd place in Harvard robotics contest, SolidWorks.
Telescopes: Magellan Clay and Baade, WINTER, Wallace Observatory, MINERVA, Clay, Loomis-Michael, Harvard’s Great Refractor, Lick, 1.5-meter Tillinghast and 1.2-meter reflector telescopes at FLWO.
Mentorship
Supervised undergraduate projects:
Abigail Schipper (2021), MIT ’23.
Cruz Soto (2021), MIT ’23.
Joshua Glass (2021), MIT ’22.
Panhasopheak Pang (2020), MIT ’22.
Alexandra Weinsten (2020), UPenn '23.
Mentored undergraduate women in physics:
Annie Gao, MIT visiting student, now a PhD student at Johns Hopkins
Kylie Hansen, MIT ’22, now a PhD student at U of Maryland.
Teaching
MIT Teaching Assistant, Observational Techniques of Optical Astronomy.
Cambridge, MA. Fall 2021
Led weekly laboratory sessions at Wallace Observatory. Supervised 6 undergraduate projects including telescope operations, data analysis, and science communication.
Wrote and presented multiple technical lectures.
Seminar Leader, Harvard Summit for Youth Leaders in China
Beijing, China. August 2015.
Designed and taught 8-day seminar “Astronomy and its Lessons for Education” to 4 classes of high school students.
Presentations and Conferences
The Transient and Variable Universe
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, June 2023.
Contributed talk: "WINTER: a new time-domain near-IR facility"
SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation
Montreal, CA. July 2022.
Poster: “Readout and cooling of the WINTER InGaAs camera”
Exploring the Transient Universe with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Virtual. February 2022.
Poster: “WINTER: a new near-IR survey telescope”
GWPAW (Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop)
Hannover, Germany/Virtual. December 2021.
Contributed talk: “A near-infrared search for EMGW counterparts with WINTER”
AAS (American Astronomical Society).
National Harbor, MD. January 2018.
Poster presentation: “A Dispersed Fringe Sensor Prototype for the GMT”
AAS (American Astronomical Society)
Dallas, TX. January 2017.
Poster presentation: “Giant Magellan Telescope Active Optics Redesigns”
CUWiP (Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics)
UCLA, CA. January 2017
Poster presentation: “Giant Magellan Telescope Active Optics Redesigns”
SACNAS (Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science)
Long Beach, CA. October 2016.
National Diversity in STEM Conference