I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Florida. My research is focused on the physical processes that drive evolution of galaxies across a wide range of mass. I use observations—from telescopes such as ALMA, the VLT, and NuSTAR—in concert with N-body simulations to understand the interplay between star formation, active galactic nuclei, and the interstellar medium in mergers. In particular, I study the molecular gas properties of extreme starbursts and the evolution of starburst and AGN activity as mergers progress.
Upcoming Conferences and Talks
- 07 September 2018 (Colloquium) “The Link Between Dense Gas Tracers and Nuclear Activity in Galaxies”, Núcleo de Astronomía, Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile)
- 12 September 2018 (Seminar) Title TBD. Department of Physics, University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
- 26 October 2018 (Colloquium) “The Link Between Dense Gas Tracers and Nuclear Activity in Galaxies”, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY)
- 08 November 2018 (Colloquium) Title TBD. Department of Astronomy, University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
Latest News
- 09 August 2018: Columbia University has issued a press release for our recent paper modeling the dwarf galaxy merger NGC 4485/90 (Pearson+) which has been accepted for publication in MNRAS.
- 19 July 2018: Preprints for three papers I was involved with have been posted to the arXiv. The first, “ALMA [CI]3P1 – 3P0 observations of NGC6240: a puzzling molecular outflow, and the role of outflows in the global αCO factor of (U)LIRGs” (Cicone+) presents new measurements of the molecular gas mass in the galaxy merger NGC 6240, including the outflow. The second paper, “CO (7-6), [CI] 370 micron and [NII] 205 micron Line Emission of the QSO BRI 1335-0417 at Redshift 4.407” (Lu+) shows observations of various gas tracers in a high-redshift quasar and characterizes the star formation properties. The third paper, “The Frequency of Dwarf Galaxy Multiples at Low Redshift in SDSS vs. Cosmological Expectations” (Besla+) explores the incidence of pairs of dwarf galaxies in simulations, compared to our measurements from large sky surveys. The first two papers have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and the third paper is currently under peer review for the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Update (23 July 2018): Besla+ has also now been accepted for publication in MNRAS and should appear in final form soon. - 11 July 2018: A preprint for “Modeling the Baryon Cycle in Low Mass Galaxy Encounters: the Case of NGC 4490 & NGC 4485” (Pearson+) has been released on the arXiv. In this paper we present the first dynamical model of a dwarf galaxy pair that is isolated from a more massive host. We show that we can explain the large hydrogen envelope of NGC 4485/90 as arising from a dynamical interaction and that the large envelope can potentially persist for several billion years. This has implications for the evolution of dwarf galaxy pairs, both isolated and around massive galaxies. The article has been submitted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Update (27 July 2018): This paper has now been accepted for publication in MNRAS and should appear in print soon.