Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy at the University of California, Davis
Dr. Matt Bellardini
Dr. Matt Bellardini is our group’s third graduating PhD student! He completed his PhD dissertation on Chemical Evolution Across Cosmic Time: Stellar Elemental Abundance Patterns and Radial Redistribution in Cosmological Simulations. Matt is searching for industry jobs in the Seattle area. Congratulations Dr. Bellardini!
Dr. lsaiah Santistevan is our group’s second graduating PhD student! He completed his PhD dissertation on Modelling the Formation and Evolution of Satellite Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations. He will start as a postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Congratulations Dr. Santistevan!
Dr. Jenna Samuel is our group’s first graduating PhD student! She completed her PhD dissertation on Local Group Satellite Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations. She will start as an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin. Congratulations Dr. Samuel!
NASA has selected Isaiah Santistevan for a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award! This grant will fund the final 2 years of Isaiah’s PhD project: Modeling the Cosmological Evolution of Satellite Dwarf Galaxies in 6D Phase Space. Congratulations Isaiah!
An article from the UC Davis College of Letters & Science has highlighted our research, which PhD student Isaiah Santistevan led, to understand how a merger with another galaxy likely shaped the orbits of the most ancient and metal-poor stars in our Milky Way galaxy today.
Sky & Telescope has highlighted our research, which PhD student Jenna Samuel led, to understand the origin of the thin plane of satellite galaxies around the Milky Way, including the likely important role that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has played in causing this planar structure.
Jenna Samuel, our group’s first graduating PhD student, has been awarded an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! Jenna will take this fellowship to the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin this fall to pursue her project: Modeling the physics of gas removal and quenching in Local Group satellite galaxies with next-generation simulations. Congratulations Jenna!
Excited to announce the first student-led paper from our group, led by PhD student Jenna Samuel: A profile in FIRE: resolving the radial distributions of satellite dwarf galaxies in the Local Group with simulations. Jenna examined the radial distribution of satellite galaxies around MW/M31-mass hosts in our FIRE simulations, which she showed are consistent with the Local Group. The satellites of MW-like galaxies from the SAGA survey have 2D radial profiles that are similar to our simulations too. Interestingly, more massive host galaxies have fewer satellites at small distances, which is caused by tidal destruction from the central galaxy. Jenna also quantified the destruction of subhalos by comparing our baryonic simulations to their dark matter-only versions, finding 10x destruction within the inner 20 kpc. Finally, Jenna applied approximations of observational completeness in the LG to our simulations, predicting that there may be 2-10 satellites with stellar mass > 10^5 Msun to be discovered around the MW, and 6-9 around M31. Congratulations to Jenna for such a good first paper!