Our current graduate students are engaged in a wide variety of research projects summarized below.
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Mark Ammons
I am currently working in the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics (LAO) on a Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) testbed, in support of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) and the Gemini MCAO projects. I am also involved in the construction of a visible light LGSAO system for the 1-meter Nickel telescope at Lick Observatory. My current science interest is combining HST imaging of AGN at intermediate redshifts with Keck K-band AO data, in collaboration with the CfAO Treasury Survey (CATS), to investigate the formation history of the bulges in those systems. (Advisor: Max, Koo) |
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Jacob Arnold
I am interested in the dynamics involved in the evolution and interaction of galaxy systems, in particular, the processes involved with close galaxy passes and mergers. However, there are many other interesting areas of astrophysics that I would be content to pursue. |
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Judy Cheng
I am currently working with Sandra Faber and Genevieve Graves at UC Santa Cruz to study the properties of red galaxies. I am trying to determine a method of classifying red galaxies imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using an automated program. Of particular interest is a method of distinguishing between red elliptical galaxies and red disk galaxies. These two types are likely to have followed different evolutionary tracks, and classifying a large samples of red galaxies is the first step toward understanding the nature of these differences.
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Edmond Cheung
I am currently working with David Koo on high redshift galactic bulges. I hope to be able to contribute to the puzzle of how galactic bulges form, whether through secular processes or violent mergers or something in between.
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Candace Church
I'm primarily interested in studying type-II supernovae with (magneto)hydrodynamics codes. I'm currently using the FLASH code to model the Rayleigh-Taylor instability that mixes the stllar layers as the explosive shock propagates through the star. This instability determines the nucleosynthetic yields and influences the observation signatures of type-II supernovae.
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Kathy Cooksey
My research centers around characterizing metals in the intergalactic medium, primarily at low redshift. I am working with archived HST/STIS spectra, complemented by FUSE and GHRS spectra, and in the near future, synthetic spectra from hydrodynamic simulations. (Advisor: Prochaska) |
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Robert Da Silva
I'm a first year graduate student in the Astronomy program at UCSC. I
have varied interests in Astronomy including large scale structure,
cosmology, and galaxy formation. I have most recently been involved in
working on quasar target selection for BOSS (The Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey) which among other things will give the best
measurements of Dark Energy to date.
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Maria F. Duran Sierra
I am mainly interested in observational extragalactic astronomy. Currently, I am working with integrated light spectra of extragalactic globular clusters to obtain their metallicities. Using this technique we can constrain theories of galaxy formation and evolution. (Advisor: R. Bernstein) |
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Michele Fumagalli
My research is focused on the galaxy formation and evolution.
I'm studying the physics of the star formation and the gas in both local and distant galaxies; I'm interested in the ISM/IGM interaction to understand the effects of the different environments on the galaxy evolution.
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Valentino Gonazlez-Corvalan
Currently, I'm working with LRIS (Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) data to study the complexity of the DEEP 2 (Deep Evolutionary Probe) survey sample. The sub-sample I'm working with corresponds to galaxies whose redshift couldn't be identified with the original DEIMOS (Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph) spectra. The initial goal of my project is to find out the reason for that with a big potential of finding sub-samples of interesting and not yet studied objects. (Advisor: David Koo) |
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Genevieve Graves
I am working to understand the nature of red sequence galaxies: What are the range of galaxy types that wind up on the red sequence? What are their star formation histories? How and when did they move onto the red sequence? I address these questions using stellar population models to determine ages and chemical abundances for sets of stacked SDSS spectra. (Advisor: Faber, Koo)
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Javiera Guedes
I'm currently working on the dynamics of black hole recoil and its role on galaxy evolution. The recoil is caused by strong, beamed gravitational wave emission during a black hole merging even and may result in the ejection of black hole system from its host galaxies. This process may be responsible for the depletion of black holes at the center of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters and lead to a population of black holes in the IGM. |
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James Guillochon
I am currently using numerical simulations coupling hydrodynamics and radiation to study close encounters between main sequence stars and black holes. In addition, I look at the light produced in these simulations to predict what these events would look like to observers on Earth. I am also interested in other computational astrophysics problems. |
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Kirsten Howley
I am currently working on a project involving the interaction between the dwarf elliptical, NGC 205 and the Andromeda spiral galaxy. Other interests including galaxy-galaxy lensing, weak gravitational lensing (cosmic shear), cosmic strings, and numerical optimization techniques. |
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Jess Johnson
My research interests are currently divided in two directions. I am working with Don Gavel, Claire Max, and the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics, investigating new methods of wavefront sensing (Pyramid Wavefront Sensing) and new configurations for adaptive optics systems (Woofer/Tweeter AO). I am also beginning to work with Greg Laughlin, investigating both the modeling of planetary atmospheres and mechanisms for the dispersal of life through the galaxy.
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Evan Kirby
Primarily, I study the star formation histories of dwarf galaxies using data from AEGIS (All-Wavelength Extended Groth International Survey). Additionally, I am finishing up two DEEP2 (Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe) projects: confirming the identity of Lyman alpha emission lines observed in the optical and deriving spectroscopic redshifts for galaxies whose spectra display only one emission line. In the near future, I plan to work with Shannon Patel to examine DEEP2 spectra with principal components analysis. |
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Bulent Kiziltan
My primary research focuses on Neutron Stars, Pulsars, Supernova Remnants and related phenomena. I am currently a part of the GLAST (Gamma-Ray Large Area Sky Telescope) collaboration. We are trying to review the current status of pulsar observations and their implications to evolutionary theories. In the past, I have been involved with the radio observations of pulsars in Arecibo, Puerto Rico; X-ray observations of Neutron stars in SNRs with Chandra; and creating a pipeline+database for Hubble-WFPC2 parallel data. In the future, I am planning on getting more involved with 3-D anelastic magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of Neutron Star-Magnetar formation, Gamma-Ray observations of pulsars as well as modelling orbital behaviour of extrasolar planets. (Advisor: Thorsett) |
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Priya Kollipara
I am interested in cosmology and galaxy formation and evolution. My current research studies the manner in which galaxies acquire mass via mergers vs. smooth gaseous infall and examines the resulting impacts on the star formation rate, galactic morphologies, and stellar chemodynamics.
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Katherine Kretke
My main research interest is planet formation. I am currently working with Doug Lin studying dust grain growth and dynamics in protoplanetary disks. |
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Eric Lopez
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Laura Lopez
My primary research interests are in high-energy astrophysical phenomena (e.g., jets, accretion disks, explosions). Presently, I am working with Dr. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz to develop new mathematical approaches to quantify ejecta properties in supernova and gamma-ray burst explosions. We apply methods to measure the relative distributions and abundances of individual ions as a means to probe the explosion histories and evolutions of SNR and GRBs. (Advisor: Ramirez-Ruiz) |
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Haitao Ma
I am currently using a 2D grid-based code to study the carbon ignition in type Ia supernovae. I plan to use 3D spectral method to study this in the future. Also I am interested in studying convection in massive stars with 2D and 3D numerical simulation. (Advisor: Woosley)
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Anne Medling
I am working with Claire Max and Mark Ammons on OSIRIS integral field spectroscopy of NGC6240, two colliding AGN. My current focus involves using the stellar kinematics of CO bandhead absorption in the central parts of each nucleus to find constraints on masses of the black holes. |
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Stefano Meschiari
I am intersted in working on theoretical topics in the field of stellar dynamics and celestial mechanics. In particular, I am interested in the understanding and modelling of the structure of elliptical galaxies; the formation and dynamical properties of extrasolar planetary systems; N-body simulations of stellar systems; and the role of chaos in galaxies. |
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Neil Miller
I am interested in stellar physics, and more generally hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics in all astrophysical contexts. Recent work has been in modeling convection with Reynolds stress closure models.
(Adviser: Garaud)
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Ryan Montgomery
I am interested in the formation and detection of terrestrial and Jovian planets. To this end I run simulations of the formation and potential observational signatures of these planets during transits. (Advisor: Laughlin)
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Katie Morzinski
Katie does research for the CfAO in the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics. She studies how the physical characteristics of MEMS deformable mirrors affects their performance, and how this limits aberrations that can be corrected for with AO. This work focuses on the extreme adaptive optics coronagraphic planet-imager being developed for the Gemini telescope. (Advisor: Max) |
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Mark Mozena
I am working with Claire Max, David Koo, and Mark Ammons on the COSMOS field. I am using observations from HST and Keck adaptive optics. I am studying the color and size of the bulge to disk components of galaxies. I am looking at the morphology of the bulge and disk components in K and I bands. I am using GALFIT, Gim2D, and GALAPAGOS to make these multicomponent fits of the galaxies.
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Jill Naiman
I am interested in computational and theoretical astrophysics with a possible emphasis on accretion disk theory. |
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Shannon Patel
I study galaxies in the outskirts of two massive clusters at z~0.8 that will become cluster members by z=0. While these infalling galaxies will transform into the familiar passively evolving ellipticals and S0s that occupy the cores of clusters today, at half the age of the universe their morphologies and star formation histories may have been very different. The goal of my thesis is to understand the properties of these future cluster members using a combination of ground based (Keck, Magellan, du Pont) and space based data (HST, Spitzer, Chandra). |
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Justin Pelzer
I am interested in the theoretical aspects of planet formation, specifically the growth and structure of protostellar disks.
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Valery Rashkov
I am interested in extragalactic astrophysics. I would like to try both observational and theoretical work before I decide what I would like to concentrate in.
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Luke Roberts
I am interested in stellar explosions and nucleosynthesis. Currently, I am working on understanding nuclear reaction flow during type I x-ray bursts using monte carlo techniques to determine how sensitive the nuclear energy generation rate is to uncertainties in particular nuclear reactions. |
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Kate Rubin
I am studying white dwarfs in open clusters for my second-year project. I hope to further constrain the relationship between the main sequence masses of stars and the masses of the white dwarfs they produce. (Advisor: Bolte) |
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Laurel Ruhlen
Laurel studies hysteresis and jet-formation in persistant black hole
binary systems.
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Kevin Schlaufman
I'm interested in exoplanets, planet formation, and the structure and formation of the Milky Way. I also like to think about the application of probability and statistics to theoretical and observational astrophysics, in particular stochastic modeling, multivariate analysis, and data mining. (Advisor: Rockosi) |
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Rachel Strickler
Broadly, my research involves stellar evolution (particularly in
binaries) and stellar populations. I discovered a sequence of 24
objects in the nearby globular cluster NGC 6397 that have magnitudes
and colors consistent with those of helium-core white dwarfs (He WDs).
This is the first such sequence of individually identified He WDs found
in a globular cluster.
I am currently working on two main projects:
(1) writing theoretical simulations of the interacting wind region of
WR 20a, a binary system consisting of two 80 solar mass Wolf-Rayet
stars (advisor: Enrico
Ramirez-Ruiz) and (2) analyzing pre- and post- supernova (SN) images
in order to determine the properties of the host clusters, if any, in
which SNe are born (advisors: Justyn Maund, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz).
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