On October 11th at about 3pm Connor Stone was hooded and given his PhD at the convocation ceremony in Grant Hall. This was the first day that convocation returned to Grant Hall since the beginning of the pandemic.
Connor has been with the Physics department for 6 years, first as a Masters student (sup. Tony Noble and Stéphane Courteau) then as a PhD candidate (sup. Stéphane Courteau). His primary area of research was in galaxy observations and structural relations with a PhD thesis title of Deciphering the Complexity of Galaxy Structure.
Connor was also known in the department for organizing the Q-GraPh journals club, a weekly journals club for graduate students, and as a coordinator for the Queen's Observatory. Before the pandemic, Connor organized public open houses through the Observatory with crowds of 100+ people for the latter, typically managed by 15 volunteers from the department and the RASC. During the pandemic, Connor co-organized the Fast Radio Bursts podcast and virtual school tours volunteer program.
Once a year, for Science Rendezvous Kingston, Connor co-organized the Queen's Observatory station. This year was the first time SR returned to in-person and the combined Physics/Observatory station was the biggest at the event with over 20 volunteers, Connor was awarded an Outstanding Volunteer in the SR hall of fame for his involvement. He says,
the Observatory certainly kept me busy! But it was a very rewarding position where I got to share my passion with people of all ages and support outreach opportunities for other graduate students.
Connor is now in a Postdoctoral position with a CITA National Fellowship at the Université de Montréal studying galaxy-galaxy strong lensing. Best of luck Connor and congratulations!
Graduation Pics
