Dr. Mariah MacDonald will be joining TCNJ’s Department of Physics this fall as the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Physics. Dr. MacDonald recently earned a dual-title PhD from Pennsylvania State University in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Astrobiology. She had previously earned bachelor degrees in Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics from Florida Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the dynamics of exoplanets, that is the orbits of planets located in solar systems around other stars. She investigates how these systems form and how the locations of planets within them evolve over time, using computational simulations and calculations. In the fall, she will be teaching Physics 163 Astronomy: Stars and the Universe. The Clare Boothe Luce Professorship was awarded to the TCNJ Physics Department by the Henry Luce Foundation in order to support women in the sciences and engineering.