Introduction

I'm currently a postdoctoral research associate at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona. The bulk of my work involves the Herschel Key Program "Herschel Lensing Survey" (PI: Eiichi Egami) and its OT1 sister program the "SPIRE Snapshot Survey" (PI: Eiichi Egami). I am also a member of the LoCuSS collaboration, which includes substantial new data from its own Herschel Key Program (PI: Graham Smith).

HLS and the SPIRE Snapshot Survey are primarily designed to locate and explore high-redshift sources (z>2) lensed by massive clusters at intermediate redshift (z=0.3). Confusion sets the fundamental confusion limit of Herschel/SPIRE, preventing blank-field surveys from constraining the faint-end of the FIR luminosity function beyond z>1. Cluster lensing provides a powerful tool to penetrate this limit, lifting intrinsically faint souces out of the background. I am heavily involved in all levels of the Herschel (PACS and SPIRE photometric) data reduction, and lead several campaigns to observe optical and near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of the brightest sources. Cluster lensed galaxies are especially inviting for follow-up as the effect increases their spatial extend, allowing resolved observation of e.g. ISM properties from millimeter emission (ALMA) and kinematics and dynamics with near-infrared integral field units.

My other main interest lies in the broad topic of galaxy formation and evolution in the dense cluster environment. The majority of my previous work concentrated on the "archaeological" approach of constraining evolution from the chemical composition and residual star formation within populations of mostly quiescent local early-type galaxies (Coma and Shapley (super)clusters). Exploiting the multi-wavelength data sets available for both HLS and LoCuSS, I intend to continue this work into the z~0.3 regime. Specifically, the Herschel data lends itself to the study of the distribution of obscured star formation in galaxy clusters.

Please see my current research page for further details.

I completed my PhD in 2009 at Durham University, where I was supervised by John Lucey and Russell J. Smith.