https://cuny.is/asheffield2
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Allyson Sheffield

Prof. Sheffield is faculty at LaGuardia Community College, where she teaches Astronomy and Astrobiology (Life in the Universe). Her main research area is Galactic Archaeology — understanding how the Milky Way galaxy formed over time through mergers and accretion. Prof. Sheffield is currently working on a project with a CUNY M.S. student on identifying extra-tidal stars in globular clusters using APOGEE and Gaia. Prof. Sheffield is also interested in technosignatures, which are signs of advanced technological life on other worlds. She is working with an M.S. student on using information theory to search for technosignatures in JWST exoplanetary spectra.

Contact

[email protected]

Education

  • Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Virginia
  • B.S. Physics, New York University

Publications

Recent Peer-Reviewed
Sheffield, A.A., Pearson, S., Nolasco, L.F., Beaton, R.L., Price-Whelan, A.M., Guerço, R., Cunha, K. and Smith, V.V. (2025). Tracing Red Giant Members of the Globular Cluster Palomar 5 with APOGEE and Gaia. The Astrophysical Journal, 991(1), 30. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adf645

Hawkins, K., Price-Whelan, A.M., Sheffield, A.A., Subrahimovic, A.Z., Beaton, R.L., Belokurov, V., Erkal, D., Koposov, S.E., Lane, R.R., Laporte, C.F. and Nitschelm, C. (2023). On the Hunt for the Origins of the Orphan–Chenab Stream: Detailed Element Abundances with APOGEE and Gaia. The Astrophysical Journal, 948(2), 123. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acb698

Sheffield, A. A., Subrahimovic, A. Z., Refat, M., Beaton, R. L., Hasselquist, S., Hayes, C. R., … & Roman-Lopes, A. (2021). Chemodynamically Characterizing the Jhelum Stellar Stream with APOGEE-2. The Astrophysical Journal, 913(1), 39. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538–4357/abee93  

Carlin, J. L., Sheffield, A. A., Cunha, K., & Smith, V. V. (2018). Chemical abundances of hydrostatic and explosive alpha-elements in Sagittarius stream stars. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 859(1), L10. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aac3d8/meta

Positions

Professor of Astronomy and Physics, Natural Sciences, LaGuardia Community College

Projects