Evelyn Johnston
Assistant Professor
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.
Projects
My main projects at the moment are BUDDI-MaNGA and the SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM). I am the Co-PI of BUDDI-MaNGA, in which 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. From these spectra we can cleanly study their star formation histories and understand how the galaxies have formed and evolved into what we see today. I am also the Survey Operations Scientist for LVM, in which I have led the science commissioning of the LVM facility and the daily operations, including scheduling observers to observe every night, training observers, following up on issues, and ensuring the progress of the survey and observations, and so on. LVM is creating an IFU spectroscopic map of the entire Milky Way, Magellanic Clouds and a sample of Local Volume Galaxies, allowing us to study the ISM on sub-parsec scales in the Milky Way out to 10pc scales in the Magellanic Clouds. With this data we can better understand star formation and stellar feedback, which in turn will allow us to better understand how nearby galaxies evolve where we cannot observe in such detail.
Highlights
- SDSS-V lead scientist for Chile
- Project Scientist for upcoming follow-up project (provisionally named Local Group Explorer)
Contact me
evelyn.johnston [at] mail.udp.cl