Sally Blumenthal

I am a musician turned scientist. I started my undergraduate studies in classical voice at Florida State University and then at The Boston Conservatory. After the economic crash, I had a change of heart and turned to science. I started at a community college in my hometown and then completed an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Mathematics at the nearest university, the University of Central Florida. It was there I was introduced to exoplanets by Joseph Harrington. I worked for him in the department of Physics while pursuing my undergraduate studies and after. I did a summer internship at NASA GSFC under the direction of Avi Mandell, who then hired me for a year contract. I started a PhD at The University of Exeter but then decided to start over at The University of Oxford. I am now working towards the DPhil under the direction of Raymond Pierrehumbert.

As my undergraduate studies are in chemistry, my research interests are atmospheric chemistry in both giant and now terrestrial exoplanets. I have a keen interest in molecular spectroscopy as well. My research has primarily been using chemical models-- thermochemical equilibrium models such as CEA, and photochemical and kinetic models such as the model used in Venot et al. 2012. I have now migrated over to the open-source code of Shami Tsai, VULCAN for all of my chemical modelling needs. I also have used Radiative Transfer code from the UCF group and Patricio Cubillos. From Ray at AOPP, I have transitioned to physicist and now am working on combining chemical models with dynamical ones.