Davit Alkhanishvili
Davit Alkhanishvili did his undergraduate work at the Tbilisi State University (TSU) at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, Republic of Georgia. In his Bachelor thesis he studied the dispersion relation for liquid Helium. Davit’s Master work was done at University of Bonn within Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA) in the group of Prof. Cristiano Porciani. The thesis was aimed at studying the theoretical models for dark matter bispectrum, the statistic used in galaxy surveys to constrain the cosmological parameters of the Universe.
Davit is continuing his PhD work at the AIfA in the group of Prof. Cristiano Porciani. He studies the Large Scale Structure, galaxy clustering and different cosmological models with the upcoming Euclid mission.
Country of origin: Georgia
Starting at the IMPRS: 10/2018
Thesis advisor: Cristiano Porciani
Expertise: Fortran, Matlab, Python
Address: AIfA, Room 1.024, Phone 0228 733433, e-mail: daalkh (at) astro.uni-bonn.de
Davit Alkhanshvili
Toka Alokda
Toka Alokda is a PhD researcher in the Cosmology research group, led by Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani, at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie.
She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics with a concentration of Astrophysics from the University of Science and Technology at Zewail City in Egypt, then she came to Bonn as a BCGS scholar to pursue her Master’s degree in Astrophysics.
Her Master’s thesis focused on testing the ability of cutting-edge deep learning models to predict the formation of dark matter halos from early-universe N-body simulations, and testing their interpretability within the framework of accepted theories.
For her PhD, she is using machine learning algorithms to find new statistics and methods to maximize the cosmological information we can extract from the large-scale structure of our universe.
Country of origin: Egypt
Starting at the IMPRS: 06/2024
Thesis advisor: Cristiano Porciani
Expertise: Machine Learning, Statistical Methods, C++, Python, LaTeX.
Address: AIfA, Room 1.024, e-mail: talokda@astro.uni-bonn.de
Toka Alokda
Vieri Bartolini
“Vieri Bartolini is a Ph.D. student in the VLBI group led by Prof. Dr. A. J. Zensus at the Max Planck Institut fuer Radioastronomie (MPIfR).
He obtained both his Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy and his Master’s degree in Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Bologna.
For his master’s thesis, he stayed 4 months at the IAA-CSIC in Granada, working under the supervision of Dr. J.L.Gòmez and Dr. R. Lico.
He completed his MSc thesis in Bologna under the supervision of Prof. Dr. D. Dallacasa and Dr. M. Giroletti, titled “Multiwavelength analysis of the radio source 3C111 through VLBA observations” (https://amslaurea.unibo.it/25356/).
For his Ph.D. project, he is studying the connection between γ-Ray activity, jet structure, and accretion mode in Radio Galaxies, under the supervision of Dr. B. Boccardi and Prof. Dr. A. J. Zensus.”
Country of origin: Italy
Starting date at IMPRS: 04/2022
Title of thesis: mm-VLBI Studies of γ-Ray Bright Radio Galaxies.
Thesis advisors: Prof. Anton Zensus
Expertise: LaTeX, Python, Jupyter Notebook, AIPS, Parseltongue, Difmap.
Address: MPIfR, Office room 3.21
Phone: Office 389
Email: vbartolini@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Vieri Bartolini
Alexander Batrakov
Alexander Batrakov obtained his specialist degree (BSc + MSc) at the department of theoretical astrophysics of Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. His thesis topic was modelling outbursts of X-ray transients and estimating magnetic fields of neutron stars. Under supervision of Dr. Mushtukov from Leiden University he developed a numerical model of unstable disc accretion onto magnetized compact objects.
Alexander started his Ph.D in September 2020 in “Fundamental Physics in Radioastronomy” group. His reasearch topic focuses on testing scalar-tensor gravity theories by means of radio pulsar astronomy. These theories are rich in different phenomena, such as dipolar gravitational wave emission and spontaneous scalarization of neutron stars. And binary pulsars are unique physical laboratories to investigate these effects by developing new timing models.
Country of origin: Russia
Starting date at IMPRS: 09/2020
Title of thesis: “Constraining scalar-tensor gravity theories with radio pulsar observations”
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer and Dr. Norbert Wex
Expertise: programming (Julia, Fortran, Python, C/C++, bash), LaTeX, Tempo, CMFGEN
Address: MPIfR, office E0.12
Phone: +49 174 359 2362
Email: abatrakov@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Alexander Batrakov
Marlon Bause
Marlon Bause did his Bachelor and Master of science at the University of Bonn. During his Bachelor thesis, he worked together with Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi and Dr. Benjamin Magnelli and predicted the confusion limits for two mm/submm telescope proposals using blind and prior source extraction at different wavelengths.
During his Master thesis, he analysed high cadence observations of the Magnetar XTE J1810-197 from the Stockert telescope with a focus on single pulse emission under the supervision of Dr. Laura Spitler and Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer.
For his PhD, Marlon Bause is continuing his work with Dr. Laura Spitler and Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer. The aim of the PhD project is to observe and interpret Fast Radio Bursts and Magnetars.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting at the IMPRS: 03/2022
Title of thesis: “Observations and interpretation of Fast Radio Bursts and Magnetars”
Supervisors: Dr. Laura Spitler & Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer
Expertise: R, python, shell, presto, FETCH, LaTeX, HTML+CSS
Address: MPIfR, Room E0.04
Phone: +49 (0)228-525-181
Mail: mbause(at)mpifr(dash)bonn.mpg.de
Marlon Bause
Zein Bazzi
Zein Bazzi earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the
Lebanese University. In 2020, he pursued his master’s degree at the Argelander
Institute for Astronomy (AIfA), within the Bonn Cologne Graduate School program
for Astronomy and Astrophysics. During this period, he became a member of Prof.
Frank Bigiel’s group and participated in the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field
Area Survey (CALIFA). In this role, he analyzed approximately 1000 Integral
Field Unit (IFU) galaxy datacubes and processed Carbon Monoxide (CO) data
obtained from the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) telescope in galaxies of
the nearby universe. His thesis aimed to assess the influence of Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) on quenching processes at the global galactic scale.
In October 2023, Zein commenced his Ph.D. studies at AIfA,
University of Bonn, under the supervision of Prof. Frank Bigiel. He also became
part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS)
collaboration. The focus of his Ph.D. research is titled “Structural
analysis of dust in nearby galaxies using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
observations from the PHANGS survey.” His primary objective is to employ
machine learning techniques to identify molecular clouds in highly resolved
parsec-scale JWST dust images of nearby galaxies and investigate how the structure and properties
of these clouds vary in different galactic environments. The outcomes of his
research will provide valuable insights into the role of stellar nurseries
(molecular clouds) in shaping the interstellar medium and influencing galaxy
evolution.
Country of origin: Lebanon
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: Structural analysis of dust in nearby galaxies using JWST observations from the PHANGS survey.
Thesis advisors: Prof. Frank Bigiel
Expertise: Python, GILDAS, C, C++, MATLAB, LaTeX
Address: AIfA, Office room 1.003,
Phone: AIfA, Office 5768 and +4915730755411
Email: zbazzi@astro.uni-bonn.de
Zein Bazzi
Suryarao Bethapudi
Suryarao Bethapudi
Aaron Beyer
Aaron Beyer obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Physics at the Technical University of Munich. He did his Bachelor’s thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching with Prof. Dr. rer. Nat. Roland Diehl and Dr. Moritz Pleintinger. The title of the thesis is “Al26 Emission from Massive Star Groups in the Milky Way” and the project aimed to explain the measured Al26 flux and inferred Al26 mass from massive star groups in the Milky Way. The work included simulating 26Al emission from massive stars in the Milky Way via a population synthesis simulation, specifically modelling spirals arms and stellar wind bubbles from OB stars. During that time he worked on improving Milky Way modelling for the PSYCO model (M. Pleintinger, 2020, PhD thesis) by including spiral arm morphology, as well as adding a metallicity gradient, including expanding stellar wind-blown bubbles and finally implementing observational data in this Milky Way simulation.
Email: beyer(at)ph1.uni-koeln.de
Aaron Beyer
Anahat Cheema
I earned my Bachelor’s (Honours) degree in Physics from the University of Delhi in 2020, followed by pursuing a Master’s in Astrophysics at the University of Bonn. During my master’s program, I delved into the study of High Mass Star Formation activity within ‘G358.69+0.03,’ a sub-region of SgrE, a significant star-forming complex located towards the Galactic center of the Milky Way, as part of my master’s thesis under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten at the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR), Bonn. During my master’s, I tutored for the Advanced Radio Astronomy lab, ‘Setting up a Radio-astronomical Receiver/ Setting up a Radio Interferometer’ and a compulsory module ‘Physics of Interstellar Medium’ at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA), University of Bonn. Additionally, I served as an assistant at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt DLR), contributing to the generation of technical documentation for the meta-information of instruments involved in the Semantic Instrument Database project.
Currently, for my PhD research, I am engaged in investigating magnetic fields on galactic scales under the joint supervision of Prof. Dr. Karl M Menten and Dr. Sui-Ann Mao at MPIfR. Our focus is on investigating the Zeeman effect in OH masers within a selected group of sources identified through the THOR survey, characterized by strong continuum flux and higher optical depth. Additionally, we aim to compute Rotation Measure (RM) values for these sources utilizing GLOSTAR radio polarization data.
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: Magnetic fields on galactic scales
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten
Expertise: Python, CASA, SAOImageDS9, LATEX, CLASS, BLOBCAT, Observing experience with Effelsberg 100m and IRAM 30m telescopes
Address: MPIfR, Office 2.02
Phone: +49 (0)228-525-272
Email: acheema@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Anahat Cheema
Ivalu Barlach Christensen
My name is Ivalu Barlach Christensen, I am from Nuuk, Greenland. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in physics from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2018, and went on to study my master’s degree in astrophysics at Lund University, Sweden, working on my thesis titled “Accurate Abundances of Giant Stars in the Local Disk – A Manual Analysis of IR APOGEE Spectra”, supervised by Dr. Nils Ryde and Dr. Henrik Jönsson.
I started my PhD in the Millimeter and Submillimeter astronomy group at Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie in August 2020. My PhD is part of the The Cygnus Allscale Survey of Chemistry and Dynamical Environments (CASCADE), investigating deuterated molecules on the large-scale environments of massive star-formation, supervised by Dr. Friedrich Wyrowski. CASCADE is a collaboration between the Max Planck Society and Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), observing the Cygnus-X cloud with IRAM 30-m and NOEMA, consisting of researcher from MPIfR, MPIA, MPE, IRAM, Universität zu Köln and University of Vienna. My thesis advisory committee consists of Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten, Dr. Friedrich Wyrowski and Dr. Frank Bigiel. Currently, I am on the last year of my PhD. I have participated in the following conferences: The Interstellar Medium of Galaxies, from the Epoch of Reionization to the Milky Way, Multi-line Diagnostics of the Interstellar Medium, European Astronomy Society annual conference 2022, Chile, Greenland Science Week, The Dynamical ISM Across Time and Spatial Scales.
Country of origin: Greenland
Starting at the IMPRS: August 2020
Title of thesis: Investigating the chemistry in star-forming regions
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten
Expertise: Python, CASA, Cassis, Spectroscopy Made Easy
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.50, Phone: 0228 525105
E-mail: ibarlach@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Ivalu Barlach Christensen
Jonathan Clarke
Jonathan Clarke did his combined Bachelors and Masters work at Durham University (UK) at the Department of Physics. In his combined Bachelors and Masters thesis he studied the redshifted Hα and NII doublet spectra of galaxies at z~1.2-2, under the supervision of Prof. Mark Swinbank and Dr. Annagrazia Puglisi. The work was done in order to determine the rotation curves of these distant galaxies, seeing their overall shape, and comparing them to the shapes of the rotation curves of nearby galaxies.
Jonathan started his PhD in September 2022 at the University of Cologne in the Submillimeter group. His research topic involves preparatory work for the operation of the CCAT-prime instrument on the era of recombination. This includes creating simulated CII flux maps for high redshift galaxies (z~4.5-6) to be analyzed with line-intensity mapping, as well as preparation of the initial data set, leading to eventual exploitation of the upcoming data set.
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Start at IMPRS: 09/2022
Thesis title: Exploration of Cosmic Dawn with the CCAT-prime Observatory
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Dominik Riechers
Expertise: TOPCAT, Python
Address: Room 211, I. Institute of Physics, University of Cologne
Phone: +49 221 / 470 7787
Email: jclarke@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Jonathan Clarke
Miquel Colom i Bernadich
Miquel Colom i Bernadich
Eleonore Dann
I completed my bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Potsdam in 2019. For my master’s studies, I enrolled at the University of Cologne with a specialization in astrophysics and molecular physics. I did my master’s thesis research under the supervision of Dr. Friedrich Wyrowski and Dr. Dario Colombo on properties of large-scale filaments in the outer Galaxy in the group of Prof. Dr. Karl Menten at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. We investigated the star formation activity of large-scale filaments from the Outer Galaxy High Resolution Survey (OGHReS) in comparison with inner Galactic large-scale filaments.
Since November 2023, I am doing my PhD on physics and chemistry of star-forming regions in low-metallicity environments in the group of Prof. Dr. Peter Schilke at the University of Cologne within the CRC 1601. We aim to investigate high-mass star-forming regions on core scales in the outer Galaxy and the LMC/SMC using interferometry data from ALMA/NOEMA and to connect the results with large-scale observations. In addition, we aim to compare our obtained observational results with simulations and predictions from other CRC 1601 projects.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: 12/2023
Title of thesis: Physics and chemistry in star-forming regions with low metallicity
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Peter Schilke
Expertise: Python, CARTA, LaTeX
Address: PH1, Office 304
Phone: +49-221-470-3560
Email: dann@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Eleonore Dann
Simon Dannhauer
Simon studied Physics and Astrophysics in his Bachelor and Master at the University of Bonn. For his Bachelor with Prof. Dr. Thomas Reiprich he worked on simulated eROSITA observations to investigate and improve the removal of soft proton flares for this X-ray space observatory.
After the successful launch of eROSITA he did his Master Thesis titled “Radio-mode AGN fraction in the first eROSITA all-sky survey” in the same group. He performed a large statistical analysis of radio-mode AGN feedback in galaxy clusters with a focus on the cooling flow problem and the effect of selection effects.
For his Ph.D., he moved to the University of Cologne to work with Prof. Dr. Dominik Riechers and Dr. Robert Simon to connect stellar scales by feedback within the SFB1601. He mostly works on sub-mm observations of high-mass star-forming regions, like the Cygnus X complex, to disentangle how stars affect their environment and vice versa.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: “Massive star formation and feedback in the Milky Way: Dynamics and physical properties of the Interstellar Medium from observations of ionized and neutral atomic carbon”
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Dominik Riechers and Dr. Robert Simon
Expertise: Python, LATEX, GILDAS-CLASS, DS9, bash
Address: PH1, Office 220
Phone: +49-221-470-8353
Email: dannhauer@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Simon Dannhauer
Lena Debbrecht
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: October/2024
Title of thesis: High-Resolution Studies of Active Galactic Nuclei using VLBI
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Eduardo Ros, Prof. Dr. Anton Zensus
Expertise: Python, LaTeX, Difmap, CASA, AIPS
Address: MPIfR, E2.05
Phone: 366
Email: ldebbrecht@mpifr.de
Lena Debbrecht
Ankur Dev
Ankur moved to UK to do his Master’s and completed his Master in Science at Queen Mary University of London in 2020. His master’s thesis focused on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) experiment, where he investigated the impact of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) excision on the power spectrum of the redshifted 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization. This introduced him to the field of Line Intensity Mapping (LIM), which he later chose as his current area of study for his PhD thesis. During his Master’s he also completed two summer internships at University of Hertfordshire, UK where he worked on an algorithm for finding spectroscopic redshifts for the WEAVE-LOFAR survey.
Ankur moved to Bonn to start his PhD research in September 2020 and is working in the field of [CII] Line Intensity Mapping, Noise Simulations, and Data reduction. His thesis work involves investigating the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the large scales in the LIM Power Spectrum for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST). He is also working on data cleaning and correlated noise removal techiniques for single dish sub-mm telescopes and map-making. He is part of the CCAT Collaboration.
Country of origin: India
Starting at the IMPRS: 09/2020
Title of thesis: “Observing the cosmic reionization with line intensity mapping data from the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST)”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi
Expertise: Observing experience at IRAM-30 telescope (remote), PIIC Data Reduction Software, Python, LaTeX
Address: AIfA, Room 1.025
Email: adev@astro.uni-bonn.de
Ankur Dev
Jakob Dietl
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: 06/2024
Title of thesis: New Machine Learning approach to understanding the Universe
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Reiprich
Expertise: Galaxy Clusters, X-ray Astronomy, Missing Baryons
Address: AIfA, Office 2.016
Phone: 3462
Email: j.dietl@uni-bonn.de
Jakob Dietl
Arunima Dutta
Arunima Dutta
Yvonne Fichtner
Yvonne Fichtner did her Bachelor thesis in the group of Prof. Reiprich at the University of Bonn within the Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA).
She worked on forecasts for the photon count rates of galaxy clusters observed by the X-ray satellite eROSITA which was not yet launched at that point.
In her Master, she joined the group of Prof. Porciani in AIfA. Her master thesis focused on the impact of feedback from massive stars on a dwarf galaxy.
For her phd studies, she stayed in the group of Prof. Porciani. She studies the formation and evolution of galaxies through high-resolution simulations with a focus on the influence of stellar feedback.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting at the IMPRS: 02/2021 (or start of phd 05/2020)
Thesis advisor: Cristiano Porciani
Expertise: Fortran, Python, Ramses
Address: AIfA, Room 1.024, Phone 0228 736434, e-mail: yfichtner (at) astro.uni-bonn.de
Yvonne Fichtner
Ina Galić
Ina Galić completed an Integrated Undergraduate and Graduate Programme in Physics at the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb. For her master’s thesis, she conducted research in the group of prof. dr. sc. Vibor Jelić at the Laboratory for Astroparticle Physics and Astrophysics at the Ruđer Bošković Institute. Her focus was on exploring magnetic fields within our Milky Way Galaxy, with a particular focus on the molecular cloud known as Polaris Flare. To achieve this, she utilized data from various sources, including the LOFAR radiotelescope, the Planck observatory, the optical radiopolarimeter RoboPol, and the HI4PI survey.
In addition to her master’s research, she completed an internship in the group of Prof. Dr. Sc. Vernesa Smolčić at the Faculty of Science, where she conducted research on wide-angle tail radio galaxies (WATs) situated in the COSMOS field. The data for this investigation were drawn from sources such as the VLA, Ultra-VISTA, and HST.
Currently, her doctoral work is centered on molecular spectroscopy research within Prof. Bigiel’s group. Specifically, she is investigating CO isotopologue emission in the M51 galaxy, employing a cloud-scale resolution provided by the new SWAN (Surveying the Whirlpool at Arcsecond with NOEMA) survey to gain a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of the subject.
Country of origin: Croatia
Starting date at IMPRS: 10/2023
Title of thesis: The physical conditions of molecular gas in local spiral galaxies
Thesis advisors: Frank Bigiel
Expertise: Python, C, Bash, DS9
Address: AIfA, Office room 1.003
Phone: +49-(0)228-73-5768
Email: igalic@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Ina Galić
Lucia Gebauer
I did my undergraduate in Astronomy at Universidad de Concepción, Chile. Afterwards, I completed my master’s degree at the University of Amsterdam in the GRavitation and AstroParticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA) track, Netherlands. During my master’s I worked analysing the number of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in Sagittarius dwarf Spheroidal that can potentially explain the gamma-ray excess coming from this galaxy. To achieve this I used information from MSPs in globular clusters.
I joined the Max Planck Institute für Radioastronomie as part of the Collaborative Research Center 1601 (CRC 1601). I aim to study the properties of pulsars at their birth and how they interact with their environment. I work with Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer and people from Project B5 in CRC 1601.
Country of origin: Chile
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: Supernova and Neutron Star Driven Feedback under the Microscope
Thesis advisors: Michael Kramer
Expertise: Python, Latex
Address: MPIfR, Office 0.04
Phone: MIPfR 181
Email: lgebauerw@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Lucia Gebauer
Konstantin Grishunin
Konstantin Grishunin
Kathrin Grunthal
Kathrin Grunthal studied Physics in her Bachelor and Astrophysics in her Master at the University of Bonn.
For her Bachelor Thesis, she already joined the Fundamental Physics in Radio Astronomy group at the MPIfR and investigated the implications of pulsar poplation studies on detection predictions for LIGO.
In her Master Thesis “Pulsars as Probes of Gravity” under supervision of Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer and Dr. Vivek Venkatramen Krishnan she pursued two projects:
She improved the timing solution for the eccentric millisecond pulsar J1618-3921 and interpreted the results in light of the unconstrained formation scenario of these systems.
Second, she calculated the sensitivity curve of the European Pulsar Timing Array for the detection of continuous gravitational waves and analysed its dependence on the cadence of timing observations.
For her Ph.D. studies she continues her research in the Fundamental Physics group at the MPIfR studying the cross section between pulsar timing and gravitational wave detection.
She works with Dr. David Champion, testing the data analysis structures, as well as searching the latest Pulsar Timing array data sets for signals of continuous gravitational waves.
Starting date at IMPRS: 05/2023
Title of thesis: Gravitational Physics with Pulsars
Thesis advisors: Michael Kramer, David Champion
Expertise: Python, TEMPO2, LaTeX
Address: MPIfR, Office E0.03
Phone: +49 228 525 180
Email: kgrunthal@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Kathrin Grunthal
Akash Gupta
Hi, I am Akash and I am a new IMPRS PhD student at the University of Cologne.
I studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai for my bachelor’s and at Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), Munich for my MSc in Astrophysics. I did my master’s thesis research at European Southern Observatory (ESO), Garching with Dr. Valentin Ivanov and worked on Searching for Stellar Clusters in the Milky Way using ML methods and Mid-IR data.
In my PhD, I am working with the research group of Prof. Peter Schilke on investigating massive and active star-forming regions using MHD simulations and comparing them to observations.
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 05/2024
Title of thesis: Characterisation of galactic high-feedback habitats using MHD simulations and observations
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Peter Schilke
Expertise: Python, DS9,
Address: Ph1, Office 304
Phone: 3490
Email: agupta@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Akash Gupta
Jiwoong Jang
Jiwoong Jang
Jedrzeij Jawor
Jędrzej Jawor studied physics at the Aarhus university, instutute of physics and astronomy (IFA), where he did both his Bachelor and Master. In his bachelor’s project he investigated the possibility of using data from the Kepler telescope to find stars in Maunder minima.
His master’s thesis was titled “Spin Evolution of Magnetars”. In this work, Jędrzej produced numerical simulations of magnetars and compared them to the real stars. The results were used to test a number of different magnetar evolutionary avenues.
In January 2023, he joined the Fundamental Physics in Radio Astronomy group.
Country of origin: Denmark
Starting at the IMPRS: 01/2023
Expertise: Python, SAS
Address: MPIFfR, E0.03
Jędrzej Jawor
Manali Jeste
Manali Jeste obtained her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Fergusson
College, Pune in 2015 and joined the University of Bonn for her master’s
degree in astrophysics. She did her master thesis at Max Planck
Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) titled “HCN emission in CSEs of
carbon rich AGB stars” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Karl Menten
and Dr. Yan Gong. The thesis focused on using multiple HCN lines to
constrain the physical and chemical properties of circumstellar
envelopes (CSEs) of carbon stars, especially the innermost region. She
started her PhD in the same Milimeter and Submilimeter astronomy group
at the MPIfR as an IMPRS member in August 2019. Her PhD project is a
part of ALMA Large Program (LP) ATOMIUM (ALMA Tracing the Origins of
Molecules forming dUst in oxygen-rich M-type stars) aiming to trace the
origins of molecules forming dust in oxygen-rich Miras.
Country of origin: India
Starting at the IMPRS: 08/2019
Title of thesis: Circumstellar region of oxygen-rich stars
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten
Expertise: GILDAS, CASA, LaTex, basic Python and C
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.40, Phone: 0228 525105
Email: mjeste@mpifr.de
Manali Jeste
Harim Jin
Harim Jin is a Ph.D. student working with Norbert Langer at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA), University of Bonn.
She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics at Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) and Master’s degree in Astrophysics at Seoul National University. In her Master’s thesis, she investigated light curves and colors of stripped envelope supernovae using a radiative-hydrodynamics code. For her Ph.D. project, she has developed comprehensive grids of massive single and binary stellar models. Based on the grids, she investigates light element abundances in Galactic massive stars and tests the stellar models against observational data. She also works on mass stripping in binary systems and progenitor models of supernovae.
Country of origin: Korea
Starting date at IMPRS: 04/2021
Title of thesis: Galactic massive single and binary stars
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Norbert Langer
Address: AIfA, Office 3.012
Email: hjin@astro.uni-bonn.de
Expertise: Python, MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics), bash, LaTeX
Harim Jin
Ferdinand Jünemann
Ferdinand Jünemann obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Bielefeld University. He wrote his Master thesis “Large sky-area scanning strategies for single dish radio surveys” in the Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology Working Group of Prof. Dominik Schwarz. His primary supervisor was Dr. Aritra Basu. He compared different strategies based on long azimuthal scans with respect to homogeneity and imaging quality. The motivation for this research is an sky survey using the SKA-MPG telescope.
He is now working together with Dr. Hans-Rainer Klöckner on the survey with the SKA-MPG telescope to analyze polarized Galactic foregrounds of the cosmic microwave background. He contributes to the optimization of imaging and calibration during observations as well as backend analysis.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting at IMPRS: 06/2020
Title of Thesis:Precise constraint of the cosmic microwave background radiation with a new S-Band southern sky survey
Thesis Supervisors: Prof. Michael Kramer, Prof. Frank Bertoldi & Dr. Hans-Rainer Klöckner
Expertise: Python, C++, ds9, Latex
Address: MPIfR, Room E0.10
Phone: +49 (0)228-525-187
Email: fjuenemann@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Ferdinand Jünemann
Mandar Karandikar
Mandar Karandikar obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Fergusson College in Pune, India. In 2018, Mandar started his Master’s in Astrophysics at the University of Bonn. For his thesis, he joined the Large-scale Structure group at AIfA, where he worked on the modelling of dark matter dynamics. In 2021, Mandar started his PhD in the group, this time focusing on theoretical aspects of structure formation.
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2021
Title of thesis: Perturbative and non-perturbative theories of structure formation
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani
Address: AIfA, room 1.007
Email: mandar@astro.uni-bonn.de
Mandar Karandikar
Fazal Abdul Kareem
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 05/2024
Title of thesis: Pulsars as Tools for Fundamental Physics
Thesis advisor: Michael Kramer, Vivek V Krishnan, Paulo Freire
Expertise: Pulsar observation with GMRT, Python, TEMPO2, Bayesian Analysis, Science Outreach.
Address: MPIfR, room E0.04
Phone: Office 181
Email: fkareem@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Fazal Abdul Kareem
Christos Karoumpis
Christos Karoumpis
Sarwar Khan
Sarwar Khan did his Bachelor of Science in Physics from the National Institute of Technology, Agartala, India. His Bachelor’s project was titled “Effect of the cosmological constant on the Gravitational deflection of Lightrays”.
He received his Master of Science degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, India. For his Master’s thesis, he worked on ‘A study of diffuse emission around ultracompact HII regions’ under Dr Jagadheep D. Pandian. The goal of the project was to trace the ionized gas environment around ultracompact HII regions at long wavelengths. Between August 2019 to June 2021, he also worked as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) of Max Planck Partner Group for the Galactic Star Formation project under the supervision of Dr Jagadheep D. Pandian, IIST.
In August 2021, he joined the Millimeter and Submillimeter Astronomy group at Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie for his doctoral study under the supervision of Prof. Dr Karl Menten. He will work on the star-forming region and analysis, interpretation of the radio recombination lines observed in the GLOSTAR Galactic plane survey.
Country of origin: India
Starting at the IMPRS: 08/2021
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr Karl Menten
Expertise: Programming with Python, AIPS, CASA
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.33, Phone +49 228-525-154, email: skhan(at) mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Sarwar Khan
Prachi Khatri
Prachi Khatri
Liang-Hao Lin
Liang-Hao Lin obtained his Master degree from the Department of Astronomy at Peking University.
His bachelor thesis was focus on the physical characters for the driving YSO sources
of Herbig-Haro objects, under the supervision of Prof. Yue-Fang Wu.
With follow-up observation of molecule lines, he annalysed the relation between the Mid-IR color of YSO sources and the evolution of jets.
During the undergraduate period, he joined an observational study using the Tianma 65m radio telescope (TMRT) of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO),
finding two new forming mechanisms of carbon-chain molecules: in a starless core heating by nearby YSO,
or in Class II YSOs with shock.
He obtained his Master degree in the Molecular Cloud and Star Formation group led by Prof. Hong-Chi Wang,
at Purple Moutain Observatory (PMO), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
His master thesis was focus on a giant molecule filament found using data from the Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP) project.
He pointed out that the GMF found in molecule line cube can be colder and more diffuse when compared with those based on continuum data.
He joined the (sub)mm group of MPIfR as a Ph.D. student in Oct. 2020 and will make researches on the early stage of high-mass star formation.
Nationality: China
Starting at the IMPRS : 10/2020
Thesis Advisor / Supervisor: Dr. Friedrich Wyrowski / Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.10
E-mail: lhlin@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Expertise: Observing experience with single dish telescope(PMO-DLH, TMRT, APEX), Python, GILDAS-CLASS
Liang-Hao Lin
Eftychia Madika
Eftychia obtained her B.Sc. degree in Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and her M.Sc. degree in Astrophysics at the University of Bonn.
For her Bachelor Thesis, she mainly studied the luminosity function of galaxies in the Coma cluster and its outskirts using the SDSS DR10 spectroscopic galaxy catalogue (Supervisor: Prof. Manolis Plionis). For her Master Thesis, she studied the temperature structure of the A2533 galaxy cluster using X-ray data from the XMM-Newton telescope (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas H. Reiprich).
As of August 2020, Eftychia joined the VLBI group at the MPIfR, under the supervision of Dr. Bia Boccardi. Her Ph.D. project revolves around the study of extragalactic jet physics, testing the jet formation in radio galaxies.
Country of origin: Greece
Starting at the IMPRS: 8/2020
Title of the thesis: “The disk-jet connection in radio galaxies”
Thesis advisor: Dr. Bia Boccardi
Address: MPIfR, Room 3.21
e-mail: emadika@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Eftychia Madika
Caroline Mannes
Caroline is a Ph.D. student working with Norbert Langer at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA) and Michael Kramer at the MPIfR in Bonn.
She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Master’s degree in Astrophysics at the University of Bonn. In her Bachelor thesis, she investigated the Centaurus Cluster using X-ray data from eROSITA in the Dark Energy group led by Thomas Reiprich. For her Master’s thesis, she continued working in the same group and used eROSITA data to analyze the intergalactic medium emission filaments around the A3391/95 galaxy cluster system.
For her Ph.D. project, she investigates the late evolutionary phases of massive binary stars using and developing a rapid population synthesis code. She explores gravitational wave progenitors, pulsars in binary systems, and stripped stars with compact companions.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: Population synthesis of binary stars containing compact objects
Thesis advisors: Norbert Langer, Michael Kramer
Expertise: Python, DS9, LaTeX, Heasoft, C++
Address: AIfA, Office 3018
Phone: 73-3390
Email: cmannes@astro.uni-bonn.de
Caroline Mannes
Elena Marcuzzo
Elena Marcuzzo is a Ph.D. student in the Cosmology group led by Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy (AIfA), University of Bonn.
She obtained both her Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy and her Master’s degree in Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Bologna. She completed her MSc thesis in the Cosmology group led by Prof. Dr. Lauro Moscardini, working on cosmic voids (thesis title: “Exploiting the clustering of cosmic voids as a novel cosmological probe”; thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Federico Marulli).
For her Ph.D. project, she is developing pipelines to exploit Line Intensity Mapping for astrophysical and cosmological purposes.
Country of origin: Italy
Starting at the IMPRS: 10/2022
Title of the thesis: “Studying cosmology, galaxy formation and the reionization epoch with Line Intensity Mapping”
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani
Expertise: Python, C++, LaTeX, Bash, Fortran90
Address: AIfA, Room 1.007
e-mail: emarcuzzo@astro.uni-bonn.de
Elena Marcuzzo
Maria Melamed
Maria Melamed already studied physics in the Bachelor’s and Master’s courses in Cologne. But for her Bachelor’s thesis, Maria interned at the “Deutsches SOFIA Institut” at the NASA Ames Research Center. The resulting thesis entitled “A Transmission Grating Based Spectrometer for Astronomical Application” involved instrumentation, spectroscopic lab experiments, observations, as well as simulations.
For the Master’s thesis, Maria joined the group of Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckart and started working on the Galactic Center. The master’s thesis focused on a multi-wavelength analysis of the dusty source G1 using VLT data. Maria continues this research in the PhD, directly supervised by Dr. Florian Peißker. The goal is to analyze other sources and phenomena in the immediate vicinity of the Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A* located in the Galactic Center. With this, possible star formation channels in this region should be determined, which is especially interesting in the context of the “Paradox of Youth”.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting date at IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: Comprehensive Analysis of the Immediate Vicinity of the Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A* in the Center of the Milky Way
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckart, Dr. Florian Peißker
Expertise: Python, Matlab, DPUSER, LaTeX, some SolidWorks; trainer for anti-discrimination
Address: PH1 (Cologne), Office 219
Phone: (0221) 470-3548
Email: melamed@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Maria Melamed
Andres
Andres Navarro Alsina obtained his bachelor’s in Physics at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He did his scientific initiation in applications of gamma radiation, working in image production using Compton backscattering. Andres obtained his master’s at Universidade Estadual de Campinas, where he worked on the validation and testing of the Y3 shear catalog of the Dark Energy Survey, mainly studying the consequences of PSF systematics in final cosmological estimates.
In July 2020 he joined Prof. Peter Schneider’s group, working with Dr. Malte Tewes and Dr. Tim Schrabback in the use of Machine Learning techniques for high-precision shear point estimates and their applications in the Euclid satellite.
Address: AIfA, Room, 2.007
Andres Navarro Alsina
Kartik
Kartik Neralwar completed his undergraduate studies at Fergusson College, Pune, India. During the B.Sc. (Physics) course, he worked on ‘Finding observational proxies for the forces acting during the initiation stage of Coronal Mass Ejections’ with Dr. Prasad Subramaniyan at Indian Institute for Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, India.
He completed his MSc studies at the University of Bonn. He did his master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. Dario Colombo and Prof. Dr. Karl Menten at MPIfR. He worked on classifying molecular clouds in the Milky Way (SEDIGISM survey) based on their morphology, studying their properties, and associating them with interstellar filaments and gas bubbles.
Kartik started his PhD in the Millimeter and Submillimeter Astronomy group at MPIfR as an IMPRS student in July 2021. He is currently working on identifying bubbles and stellar feedback signatures from large scale Galactic plane surveys (e.g. SEDIGISM, OGHReS) using machine learning techniques and deep learning algorithms.
Country of Origin: India
Starting at IMPRS: 07/2021
Title of thesis: The impact of stellar feedback on the interstellar medium organisation of the Milky Way
Thesis Advisors: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten, Dr. Dario Colombo
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.02, Phone +49 (0)228-525-272, Email kneralwar@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Kartik Neralwar
Lukas Neumann
Lukas Neumann obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Physics at the University of Bielefeld, where he focuses on experimantal, solid state physics and published two papers in the field of spin-electronics. During his Masters he also studied one semester abroad in Lund, Sweden, as am ERASMUS exchange student.
In April 2019 he moved to Bonn to pursue a second Master’s degree in Astrophysics and joined the group of Prof. Frank Bigiel in the summer of 2020 for his Master thesis. During this time he also joined the PHANGS (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS) collaboration and analysed ALMA interferometric data of several molecular lines tracing the denser molecular gas in nearby galaxies. The goal of his thesis was to compare the properties of the dense gas and its abbility to form stars with properties of molecular clouds, the sites of star formation. He found a connection between dense gas, star formation and the properties of molecular clouds in agreement with expectations from molecular cloud models. The survey (called ACA Large-sample Mapping Of Nearby galaxies in Dense gas, in short ALMOND) and the key results of his Master thesis work lead to his first astrophysical publication.
In November 2021 Lukas started his PhD as an IMPRS researcher at the Argelander Insitute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Prof. Frank Bigiel with the title “Connecting probes of molecular gas physics from the Milky Way to nearby galaxies”. In the first phase of his PhD, he continued his work on the ALMOND survey that was initated during his Masters and received new observations to follow up on the question how dense gas and star formation link to the physical environment in nearby galaxies, also making use of brand-new JWST observations to trace properties of the ISM and the star formation activity. Moreover, in the second phase of his PhD, he is going to analyse Galactic observations performed with the IRAM 30m telescope as part of the LEGO (molecular Line Emission as a tool for Galaxy Observations) project in order to quantify the emission properties of several workhorse molecular lines at great detail and across various environments within the Milky Way. These results will help anchoring extragalactic studies of molecular lines and enable more robust inferrence of physical properties from extragalactic observations. The overarching goal of Lukas’ PhD work is to connect Galactic and extragalactic studies of dense gas and star formation to help form a comprehensive picture how stars form in molecular clouds.
Country of origin: Germany
Starting at the IMPRS: 11/2021
Title of thesis: “Connecting probes of molecular gas physics from the Milky Way to nearby galaxies”
Thesis advisor: Frank Bigiel
Expertise: Python, GILDAS, CASA, LaTeX
Address: AIfA, Room 1.014, Phone +49 228 73 5659
Email: lneumann (at) astro.uni-bonn.de
Lukas Neumann
Tejas Oak
Tejas is a PhD student in the Radio Astronomy group led by Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi at Argelander Institute for Astronomy.
He obtained his Master’s degree at the Department of Physics, SP Pune University, Pune, India. His master’s thesis focused on developing a search algorithm for interacting galaxy clusters from large galaxy redshift surveys like the Sloan digital sky survey (SDSS). This work was supervised by Dr. Surajit Paul. Later on, Tejas joined Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, India where he worked with Dr. Saurabh Singh & the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) collaboration. During this time, he developed exploratory techniques for modelling the CHIME primary beam using evolutionary algorithms.
For his PhD project, Tejas is involved in developing tools and techniques to separate various emission components in the spectral data cube related to Line Intensity Mapping of [CII] and CO line emission with the upcoming Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST).
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 07/2024
Title of the thesis: Tomography of cosmic reionization and large scale structure in the universe.
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi
Expertise: Optimization algorithms, Evolutionary algorithms, CARTA, CASA, DS9, Python, LaTeX
Address: AIfA, Room 1.012
Email: toak@astro.uni-bonn.de
Tejas Oak
Denisha
Denisha Pillay obtained her degrees (BSc + Msc) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Her master’s thesis topic was ‘A statistical Pilot study for MERGHERS’ which dealt with a multiwavelength analysis of diffuse radio emission in galaxy clusters, using short integration MeerKAT observations, archival XMM Newton data, and DES optical images.
Denisha started her PhD in June 2022 in the ‘Fundamental Physics in Radio astronomy’ group. Her research topic focuses on searching and timing pulsars using MeerKAT.
Country of origin: South Africa
Starting date at IMPRS: 06/2022
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer/ Dr. David Champion
Email: dpillay@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Denisha Pillay
Prachi
Starting date at IMPRS: 09/2023
Title of thesis: “Fueling Cosmic Star Formation: The Role of Gas Accretion and Galaxy Mergers in the Buildup of Galaxies over 13.5 Billion Years”
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dominik Riechers, U Cologne
Expertise: Python, AIPS, CASA, IRAF, Gildas, LATEX
Address: Ph1, Office 211, U Cologne
Phone: +49 221 / 470 7787
Email: prajapati@ph1.uni-koeln.de
Prachi Prajapati
Anna Pugno
In 2021 Anna started her PhD as an IMPRS researcher at the Argelander Insitute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani, working on galaxy clustering for Large Scale Structure, more precisely on the modelling of the redshift-space three-point correlation function and its use in precision cosmology for the Euclid mission.
Starting at the IMPRS: 03/2021
Title of the thesis: Higher order statistics in galaxy surveys
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Cristiano Porciani
Address: AIfA, Room 1.024
e-mail: apugno@astro.uni-bonn.de
Anna Pugno
Shilpa Ranchod
Shilpa Ranchod
Saurabh
I completed my undergraduate studies in Physics from the University of Delhi in 2020. During my bachelor’s degree, I co-founded “Stellar Universe,” a student organization focused on astronomy outreach for school and college students. Through this initiative, I organized various activities and events to inspire a passion for astronomy and astrophysics among young learners. I obtained a Master’s degree in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics and Cosmology from PDPIAS, Charusat University, Gujarat, India. During this program, I worked on several projects on accretion flows around black holes and horizonless objects (naked singularities). I focused on testing general relativity using shadows and high-angular resolution VLBI images of black holes, particularly those obtained through the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). My master’s thesis explored probing fundamental physics near black holes using the next-generation EHT (ngEHT) and investigating the effects of site-selection on the final images.
I mostly utilizing semi-analytic models, I specialize in simulating accretion flows in arbitrary axisymmetric spacetimes by general relativistic ray tracing and radiative transfer using my Brahma code, I analyze and compare these simulations with observational datasets or synthetic datasets using Gallifray (written in Python).
Country of origin: India
Starting date at IMPRS: 07/2023
Title of thesis: High-resolution observations of the environment of black holes in active galactic nuclei
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Anton Zensus
Expertise: Python, Latex, GRRT code (BRAHMA), MCMC sampling (GALLIFRAY and others),
Address: MPIfR, Room E2.05
Phone: 366
Email: saurabh [at] mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Personal webpage – https://relativist1.github.io/
Saurabh
Christoph Schürmann
Christoph Schürmann studied physics at the University of Bonn. His bachelor thesis covered the relativistic effects of the stars around Sgr A*. He obtained a master’s degree in astrophysics within the BCGS with a thesis on the formation and evolution of millisecond pulsars.
In his PhD project Christoph studies the evolution of massive binary stars using and developing a rapid population synthesis code in Norbert Langer’s group. His primary focus are Be stars and stars with a NS/BH companion.
Address: AIfA, Room 3.018, e-mail: cschuermann@astro.uni-bonn.de
Christoph Schürmann
Shalini Sengupta
Shalini Sengupta completed her Bachelors from St. Xavier’s college, Kolkata (India) and Master of Physics degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. She finished her Masters in 2019.
For her Masters’ thesis she worked on “Models to explain the observed Baryon Asymmetry in the Universe”. She used Charge conjugation and Parity (CP) violation, certain Fermionic decay modes and the effect of Cosmological expansion of the universe in driving reactions outside of thermal equilibrium and came up with a credible model for the observed asymmetry.
She worked at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Pune, India in the summer of 2018. She worked with GMRT data of a Millisecond Pulsar. She studied the pulse profile evolution with frequency of the pulsar to attempt to explain pulsar emission physics and possible geometry of the emission cone. She also did Timing of the pulsar to get improved parameters of it. Timing led to improving significantly the estimated dispersion measure (DM) of the pulsar.
She has joined the Fundamental Physics in Radio Astronomy group of Michael Kramer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy on the 2nd of September, 2019. She works with Dr. David Champion on “Pulsar Searching with the 100m Effelsberg Radio Telescope”. Her project deals with searching for pulsars in the low galactic latitudes, as a part of the High Time Resolution Universe – North (HTRU-N) project using the Effelsberg telescope.
Country of Origin: India
Date of joining IMPRS Bonn: 2nd September, 2019.
Title of thesis: Searching for Pulsars with the 100m Effelsberg Radio Telescope.
Supervisors: Dr. David Champion and Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer.
Expertise: Python, Fortran90, Matlab, PRESTO (pulsar searching software), TEMPO2 (pulsar timing software), SIGPROC,
Address: MPIfR, 53121 Bonn, Office E0.03.
Email : ssengupta@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Shalini Sengupta
Iason-Michail Skretas
Iason-Michail Skretas got his BSc degree in Physics at the University of Athens along with an exchange semester at the University of Grenoble.
He then proceeded to obtain a MSc in Astronomy at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where, as part of his MSc thesis he worked on protostellar outflows in the Cygnus-X molecular cloud under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Lars Kristensen.
As of September 2021 he started his PhD in the Millimeter and Submillimeter astronomy group at MPIfR where he is looking into star formation in the Cygnus-X giant molecular cloud complex.
Country of origin: Greece
Starting at the IMPRS: September 2021
Title of the thesis: “Star formation in the Cygnus-X giant molecular cloud complex”
Thesis advisor: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten
Expertise: Python, CASA, SAOIMAGE DS9, GILDAS, LaTeX
Address: MPIfR, Room 2.39
e-mail: iskretas@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Iason-Michail Skretas
Basilio Solís Castillo
Basilio Solís-Castillo did his Bachelor in Physics at the Catholic University of the North in Antofagasta, Chile. In his thesis he studied the dust properties of starburst galaxy NGC253 using sub millimeter data from IRAS, SEST and HHT. He continued his studies with a master in astrophysics at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, Chile, where he used an N-body cosmological simulation and a semi-analytical model of galaxy formation to analyze the effects that an AGN can generate in the star formation of neighboring galaxies.
In October 2015 he joined mm/sub mm group at AIfA working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bertoldi and Dr. Marcus Albrecht. His research focuses on the dust-to-gas mass ratio in nearby galaxies and its implications on dust evolution models. He is using far-infrared and sub millimeter observations for performing a comprehensive analysis of the functional dependences of the dust-to-gas mass ratio (DGR) on the underlying ISM conditions, including metallicity.
Country of origin: Chile
Starting at the IMPRS: 04/2017
Title of the thesis: “The dust-to-gas mass ratio in nearby galaxies and its implications on dust evolution models”.
Thesis advisors: Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi and Dr. Marcus Albrecht.
Address: AIfA, Room 1.025, Phone: +49-(0)228-73-3534, email: bsolis@astro.uni-bonn.de
Expertise: Python, GILDAS, IDL, Fortran95 and CASA.
Basilio Solís Castillo
Jaswanth Subramanyan
Jaswanth Subramanyam did his undergraduate work at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) at the faculty of atomic, molecular and nuclear physics, India. In his Bachelor thesis he worked on designing and building a parallel plate analyzer for a Mass spectrometer to be used in conjunction with a small scale particle accelerator built at the particle physics labioratory. Jaswanth’s Master work was done at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg under the guidance of Prof. Cathy Horellou. The thesis was aimed at modelling the lensed quasar system PKS1830-211. An improved (and currently the best) model for PKS1830-211 published using observations from ALMA as a part of the master’s thesis.
Jaswanth is continuing his PhD work at the MPIfR in the group of Prof. Michael Kramer. He is studying the relation between magnetic fields and galactic properties at intermediate redshifts.
Jaswanth Subramanyan
Nikolaus Sulzenauer
Nikolaus Sulzenauer studied Astronomy at the University of Vienna, Austria (Department of Astrophysics; IfA) where he also obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. In close collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), supervised by Prof. Bodo Ziegler and Dr. Helmut Dannerbauer, he reduced and analysed IRAM 30m-telescope single-dish spectra to verify the nature of novel, all-sky selected, NIR/MIR sources with similar colours as the archetypical strongly lensed submillimetre galaxy (SMG) SMMJ2135-0102. The aim was to characterise the cold gas star-forming conditions in two potentially ultra-bright SMGs via rotational carbon monoxide (CO) and fine-structure neutral carbon ([CI]) transitions at the peak of cosmic star-formation history.
In September 2020 Nikolaus joined IMPRS to start his PhD work in the submm/mm group of Prof. Karl Menten at the MPIfR. Under co-supervision of Dr. Axel Weiß, he investigates the phenomenon of dusty star-forming galaxies in galaxy protocluster cores identified by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) in the high-redshift Universe. By observing bright line emission of [CI], [CII], and CO with contemporary facilities like ALMA, APEX, ATCA, and IRAM NOEMA, scaling laws and the effect of environment on the molecular gas reservoirs of SMGs can be tested to constrain theories of massive galaxy evolution.
Country of Origin: Austria
Starting date at IMPRS: 09/2020
Title of thesis: “Investigating the molecular gas content in high-redshift star forming galaxies”
Thesis Adviser: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten and Dr. Axel Weiß
Address: MPIfR, office 2.30
E-mail: nsulzenauer [at] mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Nikolaus Sulzenauer
Zsófia Szabó
Zsófia Marianna Szabó obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Earth Sciences with Astronomy specialization and her Master’s degree in Astronomy at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. She is a co-tutelle PhD student with University of Bonn and University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK), who joined the Millimeter/Submilliter group at the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio astronomy (MPIfR) in 2021 September.
Zsófia’s background is in optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy focusing on low-mass young eruptive star classes of FU Orionis (briefly FUor) and EX Lupi (EXor) type objects. In her Master’s thesis she carried out research on the second source that was classified as a young eruptive star, V1057 Cyg by using an extensive data set. She discovered highly variable jet tracer lines in the optical spectrum of a so called classical FUor. Her thesis also included the third FUor, V1515 Cyg. She discovered a long-term fading trend, if which behavior continues in the next decade, then this source will can be the first such eruptive star finishing an outburst.
She started her PhD at MPIfR working under the joint supervision of Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten and Dr. Claudia J. Cyganowksi (University of St Andrews). Her background is in optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy focusing on low-mass young eruptive star classes of FU Orionis and EX Lupi type objects. In the first half of her PhD at MPIfR, she is working on molecular data sets focusing on these eruptive objects. The literature is sparse focusing on big samples, an in general focusing on radio an (sub)mm observations therefore using telescopes such as the Effelsberg 100-m, or the APEX 12-m telescopes, she is carrying out surveys by observing different molecular lines focusing on big samples (40-50 objects) in order to expand the knowledge on the host environments of these peculiar objects.
Country of origin: Hungary
Starting at the IMPRS: 03/2023
Title of thesis: “Accretion burst in Star Formation”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Karl Menten & Claudia J. Cyganowksi
Address: MPIfR, Room, 2.36
Expertise: Observing experience at APEX and Effelsberg Telescopes; observing experience with optical and near-infrared telescopes, GILDAS (GREG/CLASS/WEEDS), python, IDL, LaTeX
Email: zszabo at mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Zsófia Marianna Szabó
Tsan-Ming
Youxin Wang obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and his Master’s degree in Astronomy at the Guangzhou University in China. He is a PhD student at Max-Planck-Institute for Radio astronomy (MPIfR), joining the Millimeter/Submilliter group in January 2024.
Youxin’s background is in Astrochemistry and Radio observation focusing on high-mass star-forming regions (HMSFRs). In his Master’s thesis, he carried out research on the search for Cyanopolyynes (HC2n+1N, n = 1,2,3…) in HMSFRs and the classification of HMSFRs based on their chemical properties. He detected HC3N, HC5N and even HC7N in HMSFRs, which supports the new Hot carbon-chain chemistry, i.e., unsaturated interstellar Complex Organic Molecules could be formed in hot region of HMSFRs. In addition, he found that the column density ratio between HC3N and N2H+ increase with evolution in HMSFRs, from high-mass starless cores to high-mass protostellar cores and then to Ultra-compact HII regions.
He started his PhD at MPIfR working under the supervision of Dr. Arnaud Belloche and Prof. Dr. Karl M. Menten. He is working on imaging spectral line survey at high angular resolution of hot cores in the outer Galaxy, using the NOEMA observations. He wish to test if the lower metallicity and dust-to-gas ratio in the outer Galaxy have an impact on the chemistry of hot cores in HMSFRs, as the chemical models suggest.
Country of origin: China
Starting at the IMPRS: 03/2024
Title of thesis: The chemistry of hot cores in the outer Galaxy
Thesis advisor: Dr. Arnaud Belloche, Prof. Dr. Karl Menten
Expertise: Observing experience with single dish telescope (PMO-DLH, TMRT, ARO, SMT), GILDAS-CLASS, Python, Latex
Address: MPIfR, Room, 2.36
Phone: MPIfR 464
Email: yxwang@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Youxin Wang
Jian-Wen Zhou
Jian-Wen Zhou