Dr. Victoria Butler is a passionate, down-to-earth astronomer who has spent the last two years as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Cornell University, working closely with Professor Abby Crites. She loves hands-on, collaborative work, and learning through trial and error. As such, she became a self-taught CAD modeler, using Solidworks to design hardware for a cryogenic instrument, and then took machine shop training to manufacture some parts herself. She also wrote a python graphical user interface which commands both her instrument and the radio telescope it is installed on. She is expanding this work to include hardware integration and system engineering of the new Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope.

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Dr. Butler’s ardor for astronomy began in diapers because she was forced to watch Star Trek reruns from the 1960s. She was captured by the moral values of future earth, and the fact that so much of space and time were still a mystery. Extracting the Universe’s secrets required many years of study, which is why she pursued an Applied Physics degree at RPI, and later got her Ph.D in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology at RIT. She also believes that scientists are synonymous with a better future, and believes teaching science to others is a way to shape the moral future where chocolate ice cream is free and on demand. She maintains her optimism that this future will emerge through video games, bread baking, and therapy.