Meet the team

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Karen P. Olsen
(team lead)

Karen got her PhD from the Dark Cosmology Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, during which time she specialized in the simulation of emission lines from galaxies, resulting in the creation of SIGAME. She is currently working as a postdoc at the University of Arizona on a grant from NASA as she further developes SIGAME. While Karen has a strong theoretical background, she also dealt with observations, taking part in e.g. IRAM and NRAO Summer Schools as well as reducing VLA data and writing ALMA proposals.

Thomas R. Greve

Thomas is an Associate Professor in astronomy at University College London and Deputy Director of the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) in Copenhagen. Prior to that he has held an STFC Advanced Fellowship in the UK and postdoctoral positions at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy and the California Institute of Technology. A typical day in the office includes using data from radio and optical telescopes on the ground and in space to study galaxies across the cosmos and apply numerical simulations in order to shed light on the origins and evolution of galaxies.


David Vizgan

David is a physics and astronomy major at Wesleyan University and he started working with SIGAME in the summer of 2019 as part of the DAWN-IRES scholar programme. He is investigating the use of [CII] as a tracer of gas mass in galaxies at z~6.


Desika Narayanan

Desika is assistant professor at the University of Florida. Prior to that, he has worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the University of Arizona and Haverford College. He now primarily develops large scale numerical simulations to simulate the interplay between small scale star formation, ISM physics, and global galaxy evolution.

Romeel Dave

Romeel is professor at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. Previous to that, Romeel has worked at Princeton, University of Arizona and the University of the Western Cape. He is a numerical cosmologist who uses large-scale hydrodynamic simulations to understand how the observable Universe evolves from the Big Bang until today. Interests include galaxy formation and evolution, intergalactic gas and the baryon cycle, reionization and First Light Cosmology as well as dark matter and dark energy.

Jay Motka

Jay is an undergraduate physics and astronomy major at the University of Arizona. His interests lie in theoretical physics and astrophysics along with statistical applications to astronomical data. He is currently working on developing and implementing algorithms for observations of galaxies into SIGAME. He is also developing statistical tools for survey strategy of LSST.

Malhar Dave

Malhar Dave is an undergraduate student in the University of Arizona majoring in Physics and Astronomy. He is currently interested in the fields of galaxy formation and exoplanets. He looks forward to continuing his studies, improving his knowledge in his areas of interest while actively searching for new things within astronomy, and becoming an astrophysicist.

Previous group members and users of SIGAME

- Dr. Daisy Leung, who was a developer of SIGAME as a grad student and postdoc at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA).
- Lily Whitler, who was a developer of SIGAME during her undergrad studies at Arizona State University (currently a PhD student at University of Arizona).

Some group pictures!