I am an assistant professor at UDP. My research focuses on understanding the formation and evolution of nearby galaxies, in particular, understanding how they change their morphology through the star formation histories of their components, such as their bulges, discs and star clusters. I have developed several tools to model the different components in a galaxy to cleanly separate their spectra and study their stellar populations with minimal contamination from the superposition of light from other structures within the galaxy. My main project at the moment for this work is BUDDI-MaNGA, in which I am co-PI. In this project we are using my BUDDI code to model the bulges and discs of galaxies in the SDSS MaNGA survey, giving us the first statistical sample of clean bulge and disc spectra.
Current position: Assistant Professor
Projects
- BUDDI-MaNGA: We are building up the first statistical sample of clean bulge and disc spectra in order to better understand how they have evolved, and thus how the galaxies have evolved and transformed their morphologies.
- SDSS Local Volume Mapper (LVM): The LVM is an IFU spectroscopic survey of the entire Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. There are many goals, such as understanding the connection between feedback and star formation with resolution at different scales. I am leading the operations part of the project, including leading the science commissioning of the telescope and instrument, overseeing daily operations, the survey progress etc.
- Next Generation Fornax Survey (NGFS): Deep photometric survey of the Fornax Cluster to look for and study the evolution of dwarf galaxies. Dwarf galaxies are the most numerous galaxies in the Universe, and play a major role in the evolution of galaxies as they build their mass through accretion of smaller galaxies.
Highlights
Collaboration: Builder status for SDSS LVM
Publications:
Extracurricular activities:
N/A