Ross McCurdy

My name is Ross McCurdy and I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in the McEntaffer Research Group. I started in the group as a graduate student in 2018 and defended my PhD in July of 2024. My research is focused on the nanofabrication of X-ray reflection gratings for future orbital X-ray spectrometers and those flown on suborbital rockets. I was the lead graduate student after taking over from Drew Miles on our most recent suborbital rocket, The Rockets for Extended-Source X-ray Spectroscopy (tREXS), which launched out of White Sands Missile Range in September of 2022. On tREXS I was responsible for the fabrication of the gratings, as well as aligning and calibrating the instrument.