Dr. Sinclaire Manning

NASA Hubble postdoctoral Fellow

Sinclaire (she/her) is an expert on understanding the physical properties of dusty star-forming galaxies in the early universe. Through her research, Sinclaire is working to build a cohesive and holistic picture of how dusty star-forming galaxies evolve, with the goal of shedding light on their formation mechanisms, star formation histories, and their number density evolution.

Professional Webpage:  https://www.sinclairemanning.com/

Dr. Mimi Song

Postdoctoral Researcher

Mimi (she/her) is an expert in studying the stellar populations and scaling relations of galaxies at cosmic dawn. Here at UMass, she is leading the NASA/ADAP 3D-Herschel Project, adding Herschel Space Telescope observations to the existing premier 3D-HST photometric catalogs. With this master data set, we are modeling the photometry using the Prospector code in collaboration with Dr. Joel Leja (faculty at Penn State) to investigate a series of timely problems. The 3D-Herschel photometric catalog will be publicly released.

Dr. John Weaver

Postdoctoral Researcher

John (he/him) is an expert in the study of galaxy formation and evolution at cosmic noon and earlier using large photometric surveys. Most notably, John led the construction of the new COSMOS2020 photometric catalog (Weaver et al. 2022). John is joining the JWST UNCOVER team, leading the photometric catalog construction. His expertise is critical, with a fast required turnaround to select the objects for the NIRSpec mask to be executed at the end of Cycle 1 observations. John is also PI of the “Beasts in the Bubbles” JWST/Cycle 1 program, acquiring spectroscopy of high redshift galaxies in an overdensity, and deeply involved in the COSMOS-Web program. Visit John’s professional webpage to learn more about his research interests.

Professional Webpage: https://astroweaver.github.io/

Sarah Bodansky

PHD Thesis

Sarah (she/her) is a 3rd year graduate student working on studying the evolution of dust mass in galaxies out to cosmic noon. Using data from the upcoming Toltec/LMT Ultra Deep Survey, Sarah will help us understand if the lack of evolution in the mean dust obscuration fraction (i.e., the ratio of the obscured star formation rate to total star formation rate in galaxies) with stellar mass and redshift is related to a lack of evolution in their dust masses. Alternatively, it may be that the dust geometry is complex. A careful analysis of this data will have us build a more complete empirical picture. Sarah is also interested in understanding the cold dust properties of quiescent galaxies across cosmic time using the same data set. Sarah completed an Independent Research Project with myself and Prof. Alex Pope working on this same topic. Sarah is also an Astrobites writer; check out some of her work below!

Astrobites Articles: https://astrobites.org/author/sbodansky/

Aidan Cloonan

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH PROJECT

Aidan (he/they) is a first year graduate student working with data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) PANORAMIC Survey (PIs: Christina Williams and Pascal Oesch). Among some of the most puzzling early discoveries from JWST is the population of extremely red, often compact, galaxies ubiquitous in otherwise relatively small extragalactic deep field pointings.  These red galaxies comprise a grab bag of interesting astrophysical objects:  star-forming galaxies with such extreme column densities of dust that were previously invisible to surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope, actively accreting supermassive black holes within the first billion years of the Big Bang, the first ‘red and dead’ quiescent galaxies’, and some of the most distant known galaxies. The goal of this project is to first identify an exciting list of red objects, and then focus in on one of these populations to understand their physical properties in greater detail.

Professional Webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/apcloonan

Sam Cutler

phd thesis

Sam (he/him) is 5th year graduate student playing a leading role in the James Webb Space Telescope PRIMER large survey by generating the first quick-look NIRCam photometric catalogs for the team. He is currently working with the HST and JWST photometry to improve our ability to control for the point spread functions of the telescopes, testing and developing Python-based algorithms using data from the Hubble Legacy Survey. Scientifically, Sam is interested in understanding the morphologies of low-mass quiescent galaxies and the interplay between structure and formation scenarios. Sam is also leading the effort in generating and vetting a Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared morphological catalog in the 3D-DASH 1.7 square degree region. This follows his earlier work on the pilot COSMOS-DASH program (Cutler et al. 2022). With the 3D-DASH data set, Sam is currently working on a project studying the color gradients of massive galaxies.

Professional Webpage: https://samecutler.github.io/

Aubrey Medrano

Independent Research Project

Aubrey (she/her) is a 2nd year graduate student working together with myself and Prof. Mauro Giavalisco on measuring the spatially resolved properties of galaxies selected from the James Webb Space Telescope PRIMER survey. Aubrey will join the Pirate collaboration (PI: Erica Nelson), where we are developing a Bayesian framework to fit spatially resolved stellar populations of multi-wavelength photometric data sets. She comes with vast experience from her time working within the CEERS collaboration with Prof. Steve Finkelstein, and will continue to develop her working knowledge of data from NASA’s current flagship mission.

Yanzhe (Jenny) Zhang

Independent Research Project

Jenny (she/her) is a 2nd year graduate student working together with myself and Prof. Houjun Mo on studying the connection between star formation histories and their derived physical properties. Jenny will test a new spectral synthesis model using Principle Component Analysis based star formation histories, building on ongoing work within the Mo Research Group. She will then use this model to model star formation histories of galaxies at both low and high redshift using real photometric and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Dr. Jacqueline Antwi-Danso

Banting postdoctoral fellow

Jacqueline (she/her) is an expert on the stellar populations and chemical properties of the first massive, quiescent galaxies. Jacqueline is PI of a Cycle 2 JWST program to acquire spectroscopic follow-up of a premier sample of quiescent galaxy candidates at z>3 using JWST/NIRSpec multi-object spectroscopy. She has a full-time position at the University of Toronto through the prestigious Banting Fellowship, spending roughly 25% of her time visiting UMass Amherst, with a joint affiliation.

Professional Webpage: https://antwi-danso.carrd.co/