CLAS Research and Teaching Fellow, University of Connecticut
extragalactic astronomy; galaxy kinematics and chemical abundances; circumgalactic medium; multi-object spectroscopy; synthetic data from simulations
I study how galaxies form and evolve in the early Universe, and the role that the circumgalactic medium plays in that story. To do that, I use resolved spectroscopy and imaging of distant galaxies mainly from the JWST, Hubble, ALMA, and Keck Observatories, alongside hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation. This work is carried out alongside my awesome colleagues
in the CEERS, FOGGIE, CLEAR, and Slice and Dice collaborations.
This movie shows the formation history of a Milky Way-like galaxy from the FOGGIE simulations. I study how such systems form by comparing the observed kinematic and chemical properties of galaxies at different periods in cosmic time with the predictions of hydrodynamical simulations like this one.
gas density is shown on left, gas phase metallicity is shown on right.