{"id":28307,"date":"2025-11-03T16:54:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=28307"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:50:30","slug":"macro-consortium-celebrates-acceptance-of-peer-reviewed-article-for-publication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2025\/11\/macro-consortium-celebrates-acceptance-of-peer-reviewed-article-for-publication\/","title":{"rendered":"MACRO Consortium Celebrates Acceptance of Peer-Reviewed Article for Publication"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MACRO Consortium is proud to announce the acceptance of its first peer-reviewed paper for publication, marking a major milestone for the research alliance.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MACRO is a collaborative effort of four Midwest liberal arts colleges (Augustana College in Rock Island, IL; Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA; Knox College in Galesburg, IL; Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN) and the University of Iowa. MACRO operates a fully robotic optical telescope in southern Arizona. The project brings together students, faculty, and researchers across institutions to explore astrophysical phenomena through hands-on, sophisticated research projects.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MACRO\u2019s first manuscript \u2014 published in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal \u2014 showcases the strength of its cross-institutional collaboration. The team\u2019s paper presents new findings on two famous and well-studied stars in the rho Ophiuchi star formation complex, concluding that rho Ophiuchi B is a brighter source of X-rays than rho Ophiuchi A, based on recent <\/span>Chandra X-ray Observatory <\/span><\/i>data. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(l to r) Alexis Riggs, Alex Fluegel, Alexandrea Moreno<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The paper\u2019s lead author is Dr. Sean Gunderson (PhD, University of Iowa ’23), now a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Gunderson\u2019s article features multiple co-authors from the MACRO Consortium, including current University of Iowa undergraduate student Alexandrea Moreno and recent graduates Jackson Codd (Macalester College ’23) and Alexis Riggs (Knox College ’24). <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s broader impact lies in the model of collaboration it represents: a small college research program that engages with the nation\u2019s leading research institutions and that showcases the discovery potential of robotic telescopes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead, the MACRO team is preparing additional manuscripts on stars rho Ophiuchi C and rho Ophiuchi D, with a dozen more targets in the star formation complex lined up for future investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTACT: Babs Santos, Director of Media Relations & Public Affairs, Macalester College; bsantos@macalester.edu; W: 651-696-6451<\/span><\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The MACRO Consortium, which includes Macalester College, is proud to announce the acceptance of its first peer-reviewed paper for publication.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":28309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[671],"class_list":["post-28307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","tag-physics-and-astronomy","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28307"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29189,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28307\/revisions\/29189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}