Karen Kinemuchi
Michigan State University, University of Wyoming, New Mexico State University
Papers
3
Total Citations
640
H-Index
3
About
Karen Kinemuchi is a leading observational astronomer specializing in time-domain astrophysics and large-scale sky surveys. Her foundational work on the Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS), based on data from the ROTSE-I robotic telescope, produced a public data release that has garnered over 540 citations, providing an unparalleled temporal record of the sky for objects between 8th and 15.5th magnitude. She leveraged this dataset to conduct a landmark analysis of RR Lyrae variable stars in the solar neighborhood, identifying over 1,100 candidate stars and advancing our understanding of stellar populations and Galactic structure. More recently, Kinemuchi has played a pivotal role in the fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V), where she helped characterize the on-sky performance of the new wide-field corrector—a three-element design optimized for infrared observations. Her contributions bridge the gap between robotic survey engineering and stellar astrophysics, making her a key figure in modern time-domain astronomy.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Northern Sky Variability Survey: Public Data Release541 citations · 2004
- 2Analysis of RR Lyrae Stars in the Northern Sky Variability Survey96 citations · 2006
- 3On-sky performance of the SDSS-V wide field corrector3 citations · 2022