Successfully obtain a Ph.D. it is a rare academic achievement that deserves to be celebrated.
Huntsville native Connor Stone, Pine Glen Public School and Huntsville High School and son of Huntsville City Councilman Bob Stone and Tracey Stone, earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Queen’s University on July 28, 2022.
Stone specializes in the study of galaxies, particularly spiral galaxies, and the correlations between different aspects of these galaxies, such as size, color, luminosity, and mass. His work focuses on the “intrinsic statistical properties of galaxy populations,” as his website states, as well as “the physics of galaxy formation and evolution.”
The process of obtaining a doctorate. it is long and arduous, with years of hard work, research and dedication. The stone is clearly not alien to this journey; completed a four-year undergraduate program, earning a B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo, and a two-year master’s program, earning an M.Sc. from Queen’s University, before moving on to his four-year Ph.D. program
While studying for his PhD, Stone created a code called “AutoProf” which he started working on in 2020 and published in the summer of 2021. The code analyzes images of galaxies in order to gather information about the different characteristics of these galaxies. and is capable of extracting information such as a galaxy’s total population, light, size, and color.
“There are many relationships between these parameters,” says Stone. “You can imagine that a bigger galaxy is also a brighter galaxy, it’s also a heavier galaxy, but there’s some random variation around those relationships. I was basically studying the scatter around that and what I find is that previously, people had been underestimating this diversity of galaxies; there is more variety than we previously expected.”
Stone’s code has helped highlight this diversity of galaxies and is being used by many other researchers around the world in places like Australia, China and the UK.
During the course of his Ph.D. Stone ran Queen’s University Observatory and once a month held open days with up to 100 attendees, which included access to the university telescope and a guest lecturer by faculty or graduate student. Stone also hosted a podcast called “Queen’s Observatory Fast Radio Bursts,” which consisted of speeches on various astronomy topics and discussions with various faculty members and graduate students.
After his four years of research as a Ph.D. candidate at Queen’s University, Stone had to defend his Ph.D. to obtain the official title. To do this, Stone produced a thesis, which he sent to his supervisor, Professor Stephané Courteau, and other scientists for peer review. On July 28, this team met for Stone’s Ph.D. defense, which consisted of an initial presentation, followed by a lengthy cross-examination. The peer review team then voted on whether or not Stone successfully defended her research for a Ph.D. and as it turned out, he certainly did.
Proud family: Bryan, Bob and Tracey Stone pause for a photo at Queen’s after Connor successfully defended his PhD.
After years of schooling and research, Stone expressed that the experience of defending his Ph.D. it was an intellectual awakening of his academic potential.
“It was quite a realization for me, I went into the defense process thinking of it as a test, it’s really set up as a test of whether you’ve done the job or not, but what I realized in the end is that In fact , it was a really incredible learning experience for me,” says Stone. “I learned a lot about my own work and how I can take it further and make an impactful part of it [scientific]community So I was very happy and relieved, but I also felt like I learned a lot from the whole process about how to be a better scientist.”
As with many professions, an investigator’s work is never done, and Stone is ready for new endeavors. This September, Stone will be working with a research team in Montreal through a program called Post Doc, which is a training-focused position for those who have successfully earned a Ph.D. From there, he aims to continue his research and build his portfolio to introduce himself to the global scientific community and work towards becoming a professor at Queen’s University.
“I have really enjoyed my time here [at Queen’s]and I think if I could come back as a teacher, that would be perfect,” he says. “I did a lot more than research when I was here, most of our time is spent learning in one way or another. It’s not just our own research explicitly, but we invite researchers from all over the world to come and giving presentations on all the different aspects of astronomy one of the things I like about galaxy research is that you’re kind of connected to everything, I connect to all sorts of other fields of astronomy and I learn a lot.”
To learn more about Stone’s background and research, visit connorjstone.com
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