Department of Astronomy

Dr. Rhode's primary research area is the origin and evolution of galaxies and their stellar populations. She has ongoing projects to survey the globular cluster populations of giant galaxies using wide-field CCD cameras and to study the kinematics and dynamics of extragalactic globular cluster systems with multi-object spectrographs like WIYN/Hydra, AAT/AAOmega and MMT/Hectospec. Dr. Rhode also led a campaign to obtain WIYN ODI imaging of specific types of objects discovered by the ALFALFA neutral hydrogen survey, and she helped discover the nearby galaxy Leo P.

In addition to her research on galaxies, Dr. Rhode investigates the rotational evolution of young, Sun-like stars. She has used WIYN/Hydra to measure the rotational velocities of hundreds of such stars located in Milky Way star clusters like the Orion Nebula Cluster, IC 348, and NGC 2264.

Dr. Rhode is a member of the Rubin Observatory Star Clusters Science Working Group (SCSWG), which is part of the Stars, Milky Way and Local Volume (SMWLV) collaboration.  The SMWLV collaboration is one of several scientific collaborations organized to prepare for science with the Rubin Observatory, an 8.4-meter telescope located in Chile which should see First Light in 2024.

Katherine Rhode joined the IU Astronomy faculty in August 2007. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Sonoma State University in 1989, she held positions at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She earned a Master's degree in Astronomy at Wesleyan University in 1997 and a Ph.D. in Astronomy at Yale University in 2003. From 2003 to 2006, she was an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow with a joint appointment at Wesleyan and Yale Universities.

Dr. Rhode serves on the Board of Directors of the WIYN 3.5-m Observatory.  She served on the Board of Directors of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association from 2014-2022 and is now a member of the Honorary Board.

• Is the M81 Fast Radio Burst Host Globular Cluster Special?, Dage, K.C., Bahramian, A., James, C.W., et al. (including K. Rhode), 2023, ApJL, 957, L17

• Exploring the Structures and Substructures of the Andromeda Satellite Dwarf Galaxies Cassiopeia III, Perseus I, and Lacerta I, Rhode, K.L., Smith, N.J., Crnojevic, D., et al. 2023, AJ, 166, 180

• A Search for Gas-Rich Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Universe with ALFALFA and the WIYN One Degree Imager, Rhode, K.L., Smith, N.J., Janesh, W.F., et al. 2023, AJ, 166, 113

• The X-ray point source population hosted by globular clusters in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4261, Nair, S., Dage, K.C., Haggard, D., et al. (including K. Rhode), 2023, MNRAS, 524, 3662

• Rubin Observatory LSST Stars Milky Way and Local Volume Star Clusters Roadmap, Usher, C., Dage, K.C., Girardi, L., et al. (including K. Rhode), 2023, PASP, 135, 1049

• Catching Tidal Dwarf Galaxies at a Later Evolutionary Stage with ALFALFA, Gray, L.M., Rhode, K.L., Leisman, L., et al. 2023, AJ, 165, 197

• The Turndown of the Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation and Changing Baryon Fraction at Low Galaxy Masses, McQuinn, K.B.W., Adams, E.A.K., Cannon, J.M., et al. (including K. Rhode), 2022, ApJ, 940, 8

• The ALFALFA Almost Dark Galaxy AGC 229101: A 2 Billion Solar Mass H I Cloud with a Very Low Surface Brightness Optical Counterpart, Leisman, L., Rhode, K.L., Ball, C., et al. 2021, AJ, 162, 274

• Substructure in the Globular Cluster Populations of the Virgo Cluster Elliptical Galaxies M84 and M86, Lambert, R.A., Rhode, K.L., Vesperini, E. 2020, ApJ, 900, 45

View a complete list from the Astrophysics Data System

• A105: Stars and Galaxies
• A452: Extragalactic Astrophysics
• A505: Principles and Techniques of Observational Astronomy
• A780: Graduate Seminar on Professional Development
• A780: Graduate Seminar on Stellar Populations