View my CV in pdf form (updated April 2025).

Cailin Plunkett

caplunk@mit.edu

Research Interests

Probing black hole properties and binary star evolution using gravitational-wave and multimessenger data.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (Aug. 2023 – present)
Graduate student in Physics.

Amherst College, Amherst, MA. (Sept. 2019 – May 2023)
Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Mathematics. Summa cum laude with distinction (GPA: 4.0/4.0).

Awards and Honors

National

  • Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation (2025 – 8)
  • LeRoy Apker Award, American Physical Society (2023)
  • Phi Beta Kappa Membership (2023)
  • Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (2022)

Institutional

  • Kellogg Fellowship ($90,000 over three years), Amherst College (2025 – 8)
  • Three Minute Thesis, People’s Choice Award, Amherst College (2023) – Bancroft Prize in Public Speaking, Amherst College (2023)
  • William Warren Stifler Prize in Physics, Amherst College (2023)
  • Mary Dailey Irvine Outstanding Thesis, Five College Astronomy Dept. (2023)
  • Porter Prize in Astronomy, Amherst College (2020)

Publications

  1. Plunkett, C.; Mould, M.; Vitale, S. Constraining Population III stellar populations with next-generation gravitational-wave observatories. In preparation.

  2. Plunkett, C.; Follette, K.; Marleau, G-D; Nielsen, E. Accreting companion occurrence rates using a new method to compute emission-line survey sensitivity. AJ 169 262 (2025).

  3. Plunkett, C.; Hourihane, S.; Chatziioannou, K. Concurrent estimation of noise and compact-binary signal parameters in gravitational-wave data. PRD 106 104021 (2022).

  4. Betti, S. et al., incl. Plunkett, C. The Comprehensive Archive of Substellar and Planetary Accretion Rates. AJ 166 262 (2023).