my research interests
my main science interest is the evolution of galaxies across cosmic time.
essentially, i'm interested in anything that has to do with galaxies. i am especially interested in...
- the impact of feedback on the galactic ecosystem. i.e., how do various processes such as supermassive black hole feedback and star formation influence the state of a
galaxy at global scales.
-
using star clusters as tracers of star formation in local volume galaxies. jwst's near-infrared capabilities
has allowed us to produce new catalogs of star clusters in local volume galaxies that include previously undetected
clusters which are still embedded in their natal cloud. in particular, i am interested in connecting young star clusters
to the interstellar medium to understand the coupling between the two and global scale star formation.
- the co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive balck holes. we know that smbhs are tightly linked to
their host galaxies, but their is much we don't understand about the coupling of smbhs and galaxies. i'm especially
interested in determining seeding and growth mechanisms that produce the smbhs we osberve in the local universe.
research experience
during my time as an undergraduate at the university of michigan i worked in professor monica valluri's
galactic dynamics group. galactic dynamics is the study of galaxies using dynamical tracers, such as stars, to understand the
underlying properties and evolution of galaxies.
my work at michigan focused on estimating the mass of supermassive black holes in nearby, compact galaxies. using the
motions of stars in the inner regions of these galaxies, we applied dynamical modeling methods (schwarzschild and jeans modeling)
to estimate the mass their supermassive black holes. the black hole mass function (the distribution of black hole masses in the universe)
is important for understanding the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes. compact galaxies can act as snapshots
of black hole growth, as many of them used to be much larger galaxies that have been stripped of most of their gas and stars.
a lot of my work in this area involved understanding the limitations of jwst when it comes to constraining supermassive black hole masses.
this involved generating mock observations of simulated galaxies. these `mock' galaxies have supermassive black hole masses
that we choose. modeling these mock observations allowed us to investigate the limitations of jwst's smbh mass measuring power.
to learn more about this work, you can take a look at the two publications i was involved in from this work:
i am now working with professor daniela calzetti
at the university of massachusetts. my work at umass focuses on using new jwst observations of local volume star forming galaxies
to better understanding the star formation process, specificaly the impact of feedback from young star clusters. i am a member of
the `Feedback in Emerging extragAlactic Star ClusTers: JWST' collaboration (FEAST for short).
one of the data products produced by FEAST is new catalogs of `emerging young star clusters' (eYSCs) in our sample of galaxies.
eYSCs are still emerging from the molecular clouds they formed in, making them excellent tracers of star formation. my first paper from this project (which is under review still)
focuses on using the spatial distribution of star clusters to understand the structure of the interstellar medium, the evolution of
star clusters, and the physics underlying the star formation process.
the papers from my graduate work are still coming out, and i will likely forgot to update this page with every
new paper that we publish. instead, check out my full list of publications on nasa ads here.
my CV also contains an overview of my research.