Contact Information
1002 W. Green St.
Urbana, IL
M/C 221
Research Areas
Biography
Professor French received her SB degrees in Physics and Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences in 2011 from MIT, and her PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the University of Arizona in 2017. She was a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA. Professor French joined the faculty at UIUC in 2020.
Research Interests
Galaxy evolution
Transient astronomy
Optical and radio observations
Research Description
Professor French uses multi-wavelength observations to study how galaxies evolve over time and co-evolve with their supermassive black holes.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Astronomy
Assistant Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
External Links
Recent Publications
French, K. D., Mockler, B., Earl, N., & Murphey, T. (2026). Prospects for Measuring Black Hole Masses using TDEs with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 138(1), Article 014101. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ae2cca
Otter, J. A., Alatalo, K., Rowlands, K., Patil, P., Skarbinski, M., Dysarz, L., Lacy, M., Jiménez-Donaire, M. J., Aalto, S., Davis, T. A., Fodor, A., French, K. D., Harada, N., Heckman, T., Kishikawa, R., Lopez, S., Luo, Y., Martin, S., Medling, A. M., ... Tripathi, A. (2026). Clumpy, Dense Gas in the Outflow of NGC 1266. Astrophysical Journal, 997(2), Article 361. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae2c5a
Starecheski, S., French, K. D., Villanueva, V., Sánchez, S. F., Wong, T., Verrico, M. E., Green, A., Tripathi, A., & Donaghue, K. (2026). Selecting Post-starburst Galaxies Based on Star Formation History. Astrophysical Journal, 1000(1), Article 110. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae4484
Colombo, D., Kalinova, V., Bazzi, Z., Sanchez, S. F., Bolatto, A. D., Wong, T., Villanueva, V., Rosolowsky, E., Weia, A., French, K. D., Leroy, A., Barrera-Ballesteros, J., Garay-Solis, Y., Bigiel, F., Tripathi, A., & Rodriguez, B. (2025). The EDGE-CALIFA survey: Star formation relationships for galaxies at different stages of their evolution. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 699, Article A367. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453217
Colombo, D., Kalinova, V., Bazzi, Z., Sanchez, S. F., Bolatto, A. D., Wong, T., Villanueva, V., Mudivarthi, N., Rosolowsky, E., Weiã, A., French, K. D., Leroy, A., Barrera-Ballesteros, J., Garay-Solis, Y., Bigiel, F., Tripathi, A., & Rodriguez, B. (2025). The EDGE-CALIFA Survey: An integral field unit-based integrated molecular gas database for galaxy evolution studies in the Local Universe. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 699, Article A366. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202453179