The Brazilian astrophysicist is the fourth graduate of the program taught at the Institute of Astrophysical Studies, part of the Diego Portales University.
22 / 12 / 2023
“Unveiling the Milky Way before redshift 1 through its stellar population content”, is the title of the thesis by Danielle De Brito Silva, whose supervisor was the director of the UDP Doctorate program in Astrophysics and director of the Millennium Nucleus ERIS, Paula Jofré; and whose objective was to investigate the chemical evolution of a simulated galaxy with phylogenetic trees.
The work of De Brito Silva, who also holds a degree in Physics from the Institute of Physics of the University of São Paulo (Brazil), consisted of testing how phylogenetic techniques can be implemented to study the evolution of galaxies and to accomplish that, on the one hand she observed and measured the chemical composition of stars, and on the other, she used data from numerical simulations where the history is already known.
It is to this field of research that Danielle’s thesis work within the Doctorate program in Astrophysics UDP contributes, and therefore last Monday, December 11, she became the fourth graduate of the program taught by the Institute of Astrophysical Studies UDP.
The research formally proposes the use of phylogenetic trees (a method frequently used in Biology) in other disciplines, such as Astronomy, allowing us to reconstruct the history of the galaxy. Danielle projects that this research will have a significant impact on the field of Galactic Archeology, and as part of the ERIS Millenium Nucleus, her work is already feeding into new research avenues.
“It was a complex and multidisciplinary work, with several challenges that were finally achieved, which makes us proud,” comments Professor Paula Jofré. “Danielle’s doctorate is the first (I hope several) that is developed and culminates within the framework of the ERIS Millennium Nucleus,” he adds.
“Danielle was supervised by me, but she worked strongly with many members of the ERIS team who perform the numerical simulations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, especially with Patricia Tissera, the co-director of the Nucleus,” Jofré elaborates.
The new PhD in Astrophysics is mainly interested in stellar populations, Galactic Archeology and what metal-poor stars can tell us about the history of the Milky Way and the Universe. Their goal is to combine all this information together with galaxy simulations to build stellar phylogenetic trees and study the evolutionary history of the Milky Way.
After defending her thesis, Danielle De Brito Silva becomes the fourth graduate of the UDP Doctorate in Astrophysics, after Ana Posses, who obtained the degree at the beginning of December; Dejene Zewdie, who received it in October; and Kriti Gupta – first graduate – in May this year.