Research Interests

My research seeks to understand the physical parameters and processes that most influence the evolution of galaxies. I examine the gas and star formation properties of nearby galaxies, focusing particularly on galaxies in clusters where evolution is likely to be accelerated by environmental effects.

I am a member of the ALFALFA Team, led by Riccardo Giovanelli and Martha Haynes at Cornell University. The ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) project uses the Arecibo Observatory 305-m telescope (shown at right) near Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to search for emission from neutral hydrogen (HI) in galaxies.

I am a leader of the NSF -funded Undergraduate ALFALFA Team, a consortium of 14 institutions participating in ALFALFA research. The program includes an Annual Undergraduate ALFALFA Workshop at Arecibo Observatory. Check out the webpage of the second Arecibo workshop, held January 12-14, 2009. Read more about the grant in a Union College Chronicle article and a NAIC newsletter article about the First Workshop.

Recent Research Students and Projects

Summer 2009: Srey Noch Chin '12 and Schuyler Smith

Two Union students, Schuyler Smith and Srey Noch Chin, '12, are working with me on projects related to the Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Groups Project.

Noch is a rising sophomore student sponsored by the NSF-funded Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Summer Research Program. She is continuing the study begun at Union by Katie O'Brien '11, to investigate the membership and HI properties of the NGC 5846 galaxy group. Noch presented her results at the Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Summer 2009 Union College Mini-Conference on July 29, 2009.

Schulyer is working on converting useful ALFALFA fortran utilities into IDL and on improving existing tools to search the AGC galaxy catalog.





Katie O'Brien '11

Katie is a Converging Technologies Scholar at Union College. She is working on a sophomore scholar research project within the Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Groups Project. She is investigating the membership and HI properties of the NGC 5846 galaxy group. You can see her at top left, hard at work examining ALFALFA data.

Katie attended the Second Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Workshop at Arecibo Observatory Jan 12-14, 2009. There she participated in observing (lower left, with P.J. Stevens of Georgia Southern University) and checked out ALFA, the detector used in the ALFALFA survey.

John Robens '09

John received a NASA NY Space Grant Fellowship to work with me during Summer 2008. As part of his project Searching for Optical Counterparts of Galaxies and Tidal Streams Detected by the ALFALFA Survey, he analyzed optical followup images of HI sources detected by ALFALFA. The images were obtained at the 0.9m telescope at CTIO in Chile via SMARTS (Small and Moderate Aperture Telescope System). Here John presents the results of his research at the Union College Summer Seminar Series. John also presented his work at the Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Summer 2008 Mini-Conference on July 16, 2008, at Union College. Learn more about John's project at his webpage.

Nathan Calabro '08

Nate completed his senior thesis in Physics and Astronomy, working on a project to design an ALFALFA outreach activity, in collaboration with Jose Alonso and Brian Kent. The activity will soon be available on the ALFALFA website.

Nate travelled to Arecibo in January 2008 to present at the First Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Workshop, as shown at left top. Nate also toured the telescope and participated in an observing run. At left bottom, Nate and I pose at the Arecibo Angel Ramos Visitor Center overlook with the telescope platform in the background.

Nate plans to pursue teaching as a career. He spent Summer 2008 as an astronomy intern at the St. Paul's School in New Hampshire.


Bilal Mahmood '08


Bilal began research with me during his freshman year, analyzing H-alpha observations of galaxies. He went on to complete a sophomore scholar's project and two summer projects working on ALFALFA-related projects. He accompanied me to Arecibo in December 2006 for an ALFALFA observing run led by Martha Haynes at Cornell. During the run, he got to see the view from the top and bottom, as well as operate the telescope! He became an expert at Level I data processing (flagbb!), and is a co-author on the first ALFALFA catalog.

Bilal also presented his work at ALFALFA workshops, at the Union College Summer Seminar Series, and at the Steinmetz Symposium.

Bilal is currently a medical student at Dartmouth.

Last updated: July 30, 2009