Meet the team!

Daniel Angles-Alcazar picture
Daniel Anglés-Alcázar
Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut (2019-)
Cottrell Scholar Award (2023)
Associate Research ScientistFlatiron Institute (2019-2022)
Flatiron Research Fellowship, Flatiron Institute (2017-2019)
CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship, Northwestern University (2014-2017)
Ph.D. in Physics, University of Arizona (2014)
M.S. in Physics, University of Puerto Rico (2009)
B.S. (Licenciatura) in Physics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2007)

Postdoctoral researchers

Boon Kiat (BK) Oh
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Connecticut (2022-)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Seoul National University (2019-2022)
Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Edinburgh (2019)
M.S. in Theoretical Physics, University of Edinburgh (2015)
B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (2011)

Graduate students

Jonathan Mercedes Feliz
Jonathan Mercedes-Feliz
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2024)
NASA CT Space Grant Graduate Fellow (2021)
Jonathan joined the group in Spring 2020 and he is currently investigating the impact of AGN feedback in the form of fast accretion-driven winds on massive star-forming galaxies using high resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulations implementing resolved multi-phase interstellar medium physics from the FIRE project and a novel implementation of AGN-driven winds.

Matt Gebhardt
Matthew Gebhardt
Matt joined the group in Fall 2020 and he is investigating the impact of baryonic physics, including feedback from stars and massive black holes, on the large scale distribution of matter in the Universe, using cosmological hydrodynamic simulations from the CAMELS project.     
Picture of Niranjan Roy
Niranjan Roy
M.S. in Physics, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (2021)
Niranjan joined the group in Fall 2021 and he is interested in developing tools to create detailed mock galaxy spectra from cosmological hyper-refinement simulations to interpret observations of galaxies across redshifts. 
Xavier Sims
Xavier joined the group in Spring 2022 and he is investigating the impact of large scale environmental effects on galaxy evolution using simulations with a variety of feedback implementations from the CAMELS project. 
Sagan Sutherland
Sagan joined the group in Fall 2023 and he is using the SWIFT code to produce a new large set of CAMELS simulations and investigate the robustness of machine learning models to changes in galaxy formation physics.   

Undergraduate students

Sofya Levitina
Sofya Levitina
University Scholar (2023)
UConn IDEA Grant (2022)
BOLD Women’s Leadership Scholar (2022)
Sofya joined the group in Spring 2021 during her first year at UConn and she is using the SIMBA large volume cosmological simulation to study the different growth mechanisms of supermassive black holes, considering the accretion of cold gas driven by gravitational torques, the capture of hot pressure-supported gas, and the contribution of black hole mergers.  
Aina Nambena
Aina joined the group in Spring 2022 and she is developing machine learning algorithms trained on the CAMELS simulations to understand the physical mechanisms driving quenching of star formation in massive galaxies.  
Rachel Cleveland
McNair Scholar (2023)
Rachel joined the group in Fall 2022 as a McNair Apprentice and she is exploring the use of simulations such as SIMBA and CAMELS to understand the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies.  
Danny Baker
Danny joined the group in Fall 2022 and he is investigating the origin of gas in halos and the impact of AGN feedback using the CAMELS simulations.

  

Grace Farrell
Grace joined the group in Spring 2023 and she is investigating the dynamical properties of galaxies using synthetic emission line data cubes from FIRE cosmological simulations.

  

Jose Cevallos
McNair Scholar (2023)
CAPS Summer Research Scholar (2023)
Jose joined the group in Summer 2023 and he is investigating the interplay between feeding and feedback of massive black holes in Seyfert-like galaxies using the FIRE-3 simulations.

  

Former members

Joyce Caliendo
Joyce Caliendo
Astronomy Ph.D. program, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2021-)
B.S. in Physics, University of Connecticut (2021)
New England Scholar 2021
NASA CT Space Grant Undergraduate Fellow 2018
Joyce joined the group in Fall 2020 and investigated the effects of changing cosmological parameters and varying the efficiency of stellar and AGN feedback on the global properties of galaxies, using cosmological simulations from the CAMELS project.
Picture of Amanda Zettler
Amanda Zettler
Amanda joined the group in Spring 2022 and completed a Research Thesis investigating the impact of different black hole accretion and feedback mechanisms on the black hole-galaxy scaling relations using the SIMBA simulations.  

Group dinner with visitor Rachel Cochrane in the Spring 2023

Virtual group meeting, Summer 2021

Team picture