“Quest for Truth”: Phoebe Heretz ’24 pivots from music to researching curiosities in astrophysics

Shortly after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Music, Phoebe Heretz ’24 (Physics & Astronomy) moved to New Paltz in 2017 for a change of scenery that she hoped would inspire her songwriting. Instead, the move led her to make a career pivot and get back in touch with her passion for the night skies.  

“I realized while watching Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ series one night during the pandemic that I should go back to school for my childhood love: astrophysics,” she said. “I then found that SUNY New Paltz had an astronomy program, and the rest is history.”  

The 2024 SUNY New Paltz President’s Award recipient spent the next four years building an impressive volume of scholarship, with four research experiences and campus presentations encompassing various topics in astronomy, such as forming solar systems, and galaxy evolution.

“I found from being a student here how much I enjoy the scientific process,” she said. “I look at it as a quest for truth, where you follow certain steps in order to arrive at a conclusion that provides a foundation for fellow scientists to build upon.”  

Heretz has flexed her skills as a student host with New Paltz’s John R. Kirk Planetarium, a unique resource on campus that gives patrons extensive access into to our Universe, from our local night sky to galaxies far away.

“It’s the coolest job I’ve ever had,” she said. “It’s rare for Astronomy students to have a planetarium on campus where they can share the joy of the night skies with the public.” 

She has also presented her work at several conferences nationwide, including most recently at the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics at the United States Military Academy at West Point in Orange County, New York.  

Heretz took home the award for Best Overall Research Poster for her research affiliated with the Center for Astrophysics in her hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She helped develop a diagnostic tool astrophysicists can use to understand how galaxies evolve by understanding their metallicity, or the study of chemical abundances heavier than hydrogen and helium.  

“”I am grateful to have grown so much as a researcher at New Paltz, and that I was able to discover what I am passionate about, and would like to pursue,” she said.  

She is also a recent winner of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowship, which is the biggest award Heretz has received in her academic career thus far. This grant will help fund the next chapter in her educational journey, providing three years of funding for a doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she will expand on her inquiry of how galaxies evolve over cosmic time.

“I’m thrilled to apply what I’ve learned from my time here at New Paltz to these next few years as a PhD student,” she said. 

Click here to learn more about the Department of Physics & Astronomy at SUNY New Paltz.