Sorya Lambert

PhD student

I am a PhD student at IEA, working with Professor Evelyn Johnston. My research revolves around the formation and evolution of galaxies. The heart of my thesis is to explore a new way of understanding how galaxies grow and evolve. In biology, phylogenetic trees trace evolutionary pathways, showing how species diverge and inherit traits over time. I will adapt this concept to galaxies, using integral-field spectroscopy to build ‘family trees’ of their stellar populations. Bringing stellar phylogenies into astronomy opens a new way to understand how generations of stars inherit, enrich, and shape the galaxies they live in. This perspective adds a fun interdisciplinary twist to galaxy evolution: galaxies aren’t just collections of stars; they’re living histories!

Projects

Stellar populations and kinematics of NGC 1365: I have been working to demonstrate the unique capabilities of the Local Volume Mapper (LVM), with the long-term goal of developing phylogenetic trees for unresolved stellar populations. My current project uses LVM observations of NGC 1365, a spiral galaxy in the Fornax Cluster, to produce maps of stellar and gas kinematics and stellar-population diagnostics (age and metallicity), from the nucleus to the outskirts.
We aim to demonstrate that LVM’s wide field-of-view can deliver reliable nucleus-to-outskirts measurements, without mosaicking. Benchmarking and validating a robust analysis pipeline will allow it to be applied to other local volume galaxies in the future.

Highlights

I am a member of the SDSS-V LVM collaboration.

Extracurricular activities

I love to spend time in nature and hiking in the mountains. But most of all, traveling and getting to know new countries and cultures is one of my main passions. When I am not outdoors, DIY occupies most of my free time.

Contact me

sorya.lambert [at] mail.udp.cl