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, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
External Links
Recent Publications
Jones, D. O., Foley, R. J., Narayan, G., Hjorth, J., Huber, M. E., Aleo, P. D., Alexander, K. D., Angus, C. R., Auchettl, K., Baldassare, V. F., Bruun, S. H., Chambers, K. C., Chatterjee, D., Coppejans, D. L., Coulter, D. A., Demarchi, L., Dimitriadis, G., Drout, M. R., Engel, A., ... Wainscoat, R. J. (2021). The Young Supernova Experiment: Survey Goals, Overview, and Operations. Astrophysical Journal, 908(2), [143]. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abd7f5
Kilpatrick, C. D., Drout, M. R., Auchettl, K., DImitriadis, G., Foley, R. J., Jones, D. O., Demarchi, L., French, K. D., Gall, C., Hjorth, J., Jacobson-Galán, W. V., Margutti, R., Piro, A. L., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., Rest, A., & Rojas-Bravo, C. (2021). A cool and inflated progenitor candidate for the Type Ib supernova 2019yvr at 2.6 yr before explosion. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 504(2), 2073-2093. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab838
Zabludoff, A., Arcavi, I., La Massa, S., Perets, H. B., Trakhtenbrot, B., Zauderer, B. A., Auchettl, K., Dai, J. L., French, K. D., Hung, T., Kara, E., Lodato, G., Maksym, W. P., Qin, Y., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., Roth, N., Runnoe, J. C., & Wevers, T. (2021). Distinguishing Tidal Disruption Events from Impostors. Space Science Reviews, 217(4), [54]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00829-4
Chen, P., Dong, S., Stritzinger, M. D., Holmbo, S., Strader, J., Kochanek, C. S., Peng, E. W., Benetti, S., Bersier, D., Brownsberger, S., Buckley, D. A. H., Gromadzki, M., Moran, S., Pastorello, A., Aydi, E., Bose, S., Connor, T., Boutsia, K., Di Mille, F. D., ... Swihart, S. J. (2020). The Most Rapidly Declining Type i Supernova 2019bkc/ATLAS19dqr. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 889(1), [L6]. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab62a4
French, K. D., Wevers, T., Law-Smith, J., Graur, O., & Zabludoff, A. I. (2020). The Host Galaxies of Tidal Disruption Events. Space Science Reviews, 216(3), [32]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00657-y