Sherelyn Alejandro Merchan

My research focuses on analyzing the atmospheres of cold extrasolar worlds using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in an effort to characterize them. Using their spectral energy distributions (SEDs), I am able to calculate fundamental parameters like luminosity and temperature.
Additionally, I develop code for the open-source package SEDkit: a collection of python modules used for constructing SEDs. Below are some projects I have been a part of.

Methane emission from a cool brown dwarf

Diversity of Cold Worlds: A Near Complete Spectral Energy Distribution for 2MASS J04151954−0935066 using JWST

You can download my CV here!

Additionally, you can find a longer list of my work using my ORCID.

Hola! My name is Sherelyn Alejandro Merchan, and I am an astrophysicist pursuing a PhD in Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center. I am originally from Ecuador, but I have been living in NY for a while and completed my undergraduate studies at Hunter College in New York City. I am passionate about the interdisciplinary link between planetary sciences and stellar astrophysics. Currently, I am a member of the Brown Dwarfs in NYC (BDNYC) research group at the American Museum of Natural History, where I work with a team of amazing scientists.

When I am not coding (2% of my time), you can usually find me drinking dunkin donuts iced coffee, listening to pop or rock music, or at a beach somewhere with my dog Mocha. If you want to know what I am listening to, check out the music player below! Ignore the ads that pop up, I am not paying for YouTube Premium.