My research interests lie in understanding the characteristics and evolution of star-forming galaxies. The details of galaxy characteristics are best studied in nearby systems where spatial resolution is high, whereas studying how galaxies evolve with time necessarily requires obtaining data from a wide range of cosmic epochs (and thus cosmic distances). Hence, I study both relatively nearby and fairly distant galaxies. "Nearby" implies closer than about 30 Mpc, a distance that takes light 100 million years to traverse; "distant" in my research involves up to ten billion light years, or three-fourths the size of the Universe. My ground-based observing programs have taken me to Hawaii, California, Arizona, New Mexico, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Chile, and nearby Jelm Mountain.
Infrared Space-Based Studies of Galaxies
Data from recent space-based platforms have provided the framework for my current primary area of research, the infrared properties of galaxies. I've primarily used the Infrared Space Observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Herschel Space Observatory. One of my specialties is modeling the infrared spectral energy distributions of normal star-forming galaxies, but I also have dabbled in using infrared spectroscopy to develop diagnostics that distinguish between galaxies powered by AGN and those dominated by star formation. My projects include SINGS - The Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey, LVL - The Local Volume Legacy Survey, 5MUSES - The 5 mJy Unbiased Spitzer Extragalactic Survey, EDGES - Stellar Distributions in Dark Matter Halos: Looking Over the Edge
, and KINGFISH - Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: A Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel. This research is supported by grants from JPL/NASA.
Optical Ground-Based Studies of Galaxies
My research team work has led or been involved in multiple studies of the H&alpha emission from galaxies. One project deeply imaged H&alpha line emission from star-forming galaxies over four square degrees of sky at six different epochs in time, to track the evolution of the cosmic star formation rate. We used the Wyoming Infrared Observatory's 2.3 m telescope and two Kitt Peak telescopes (Steward Observatory's 2.3 m and NOAO's 4 m). A related ongoing project NewH&alpha utilizes the Cerro Tololo and Las Campanas observatories, both in Chile, to characterize the properties of high-redshift star-forming galaxies. This research has been supported by a CAREER award from NSF. See the full press release.
Resume/Curriculum Vita: pdf
Publications: pdf html (refereed only) Wordle-ing my paper titles
Research: Spitzer SINGS Spitzer 5MUSES Spitzer LVL NSF WySH Herschel KINGFISH Infrared SED models rotation curves
Students: Cook Staudaher Moore Miller Pandey Aller Thatcher Schlawin Hanson Carpenter Dupczak Haugsjaa
Postbacs: Cook Staudaher Cohen Johnson Schuster Barlow Kattner Lamanna
Group photos: Members 2011 2012
Background image by Shawn Staudaher: Infrared three-color images of over 250 nearby galaxies