DAWN Alumni

John R. Weaver

I am a PhD student based at the Cosmic Dawn Center advised by Sune Toft, with Peter Capak (IPAC), Henry McCracken (IAP), and Dave Sanders (IfA). I received my Masters degree in 2018 from the University of St Andrews advised by Vivienne Wild. My research focuses on the assembly and evolution of galaxies across the 1.37 billion year history of our Universe, through direct observation with optical and infrared telescopes from both space and from the ground.

Previously, I have interned as a summer researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Leiden Observatory, and the Maria Mitchell Observatory. I am also the project director of the spectroscopy database at the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

Beyond academia, I am a frequent contributor to popular science publications, and have been a long-time volunteer at public observatories.

Vasily Kokorev

PhD Student| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a PhD student at the Cosmic Dawn Centre working under the supervision of Georgios Magdis. My current research focuses on the evolution of molecular gas in galaxies with redshift. My other research interests include the formation of first galaxies and the epoch of reionisation.

I received my master’s degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Sussex in 2018, where I have carried out work related to the 21 cm radio astronomy, while being advised by Mark Sargent.

Carlos Gómez-Guijarro

PhD | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a PhD graduate from the Cosmic Dawn Center advised by Sune Toft. My research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution across the history of the Universe. I am interested in the evolutionary pathways of massive galaxies. Particularly, the nature and role of dusty star-forming galaxies as their progenitors, how and what made star-forming galaxies to stop forming stars. I use observations from X-rays to radio wavelengths from both space and the ground.
Before coming to Copenhagen for my PhD I was a student at the Complutense University of Madrid, where I received my Bachelor and Master degrees in Physics and Astrophysics and started my scientific career. I did internships as a summer student at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC, Spain) and the Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica (IRyA, Mexico). During my PhD I have also worked closely with scientists at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie (AIfA, Germany) and Cornell University (USA), where I spent a few months.

Mikkel Stockmann

PhD | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a Danish PhD graduate from the Cosmic Dawn Center, after starting my PhD at the Dark Cosmology Centre under the Supervision of Sune Toft. My main research has been concentrated on the evolution of massive galaxies and their death across the last 10 billion years.

I utilized the Danish build X-Shooter instrument attached to the Very Large Telescope located in Paranal, Chile for my thesis. Together with time granted on the prestigious Hubble Space Telescope I have studied the structural properties and stellar populations of the largest sample of massive quiescent galaxies at z>2.  In a closely related project, I was awarded additional time with X-Shooter, to study these massive dead galaxies with very high resolution by taking advantage of the beautiful effect called gravitational lensing.  I take part in public outreach both via Astronomy On Tap events and popular scientific talks.

Outside astronomy I like to rock climb and enjoy the cultural life of Copenhagen.

I was awarded my doctorate degree after successfully defending my thesis on the 23rd of October, 2019.

Isabella Cortzen

Postdoc|  Institut de radioastronomie millimetriqué  (IRAM)
_{Grenoble, France}

I obtained my master’s degree from the Dark Cosmology Centre in 2016, where I studied the star formation and gas properties in a large sample of starburst and main-sequence galaxies at 0 < z < 6.

In 2020, I received my PhD degree at DAWN under the supervision of Georgios Magdis. During my PhD, I studied the ISM properties of galaxies by comparing different methods to measure the dust and molecular gas properties of star-forming galaxies.

I am now a postdoctoral researcher at IRAM, where I work on zGAL, a large NOEMA project aimed at determining the physical properties of the brightest submillimeter galaxies in the Herschel fields.

Athanasios Anatasiou

MSc Student| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a MSc student at the Cosmic Dawn center working on my Thesis with Georgios Magdis.  My thesis focuses on cross-validating the new photometric data of the Cosmos 2020 catalogue with previous versions and other surveys in the literature. More specifically, I’m examining the properties of galaxies such as photometric redshift, color classification and stellar mass. This is done with the use of updated photometric data from 15 different filters from 4 different telescopes (CFHT, VISTA , Subaru and Spitzer). With this work we hope to obtain deeper data , less outliers between photometric and spectroscopic redshift , possibly new galaxy populations and a better galaxy mass assembly constraint.

I originally come from Greece where I graduated from the University of Athens in 2018 and obtained my BSc degree.

Cecilie S. Nørholm

I am a MSc graduate from the Cosmic Dawn Center, advised by Francesco Valentino, Georgios Magdis, and Sune Toft. My thesis was on environmental effects on galaxy evolution, where I am investigating galaxies in clusters and protoclusters through data obtained with the Very Large Telescope. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in 2017, also at the University of Copenhagen, with Marianne Vestergaard as supervisor.

I enjoy being able to work with observational data, which was something I first experienced in 2016. Here, I attended a course on observational astronomy where I, together with a group of fellow students, planned and executed observations at the Nordic Optical Telescope.

When not working, I am very interested in communication of science, which I enjoy doing through my student job at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium as well as by giving lectures to secondary school students attending internships at University of Copenhagen.

Christina Konstantopoulou

MSc| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a MSc graduate from the the Cosmic Dawn Center supervised by Johan Peter Uldall Fynbo. I received my Bachelor degree in 2017 from the University of Patras. My master’s thesis focuses on red quasars, and the aim is to characterize the efficiency of quasar selection based on astrometry, which does not suffer from most of the selection biases of other existing methods. Direct observations are obtained with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) and astrometry is provided by the ESA Gaia mission.

I completed my internship at the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS), National Observatory of  Athens, supervised by Vassilis Charmandaris.

Simon Pochinda

MSc Student | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am an MSc student at the Cosmic DAWN Center, advised by Georgios Magdis and Gabriel Brammer.

I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Physics in 2018 at the University of Southern Denmark under the supervision of Mads Toudal Frandsen, where I worked on numerically determining the dark matter distribution of merging galaxy clusters. Following my Bachelor’s degree in Physics I moved to the University of Copenhagen to pursue my lifelong interest in Astronomy. During my time at the University of Copenhagen I have also studied abroad at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London and participated in the Nordic Optical Telescope Summer School at La Palma offered by the Instrument Center for Danish Astrophysics.

My current work involves characterization of high redshift dusty galaxies within the GOODS-S legacy field using multiwavelength observational data. This involves determination of photometric redshifts through fitting computationally generated galaxy templates using the EaZY code.

Magdalena Maria Otap

MSc Student| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a MSc Student at the Cosmic Dawn Center, working on my thesis advised by Johan Fynbo from the Cosmic Dawn and Marianne Achiam from the Department of Science Education. 

I am partially doing my thesis in cooperation with the Brorfelde Observatory and the Online Observatory project with the purpose of testing and further developing online astronomy teaching material for primary and secondary school levels.

I originally got my first Masters degree in computer science from Copenhagen University (2010), where my focus was human computer interaction and online communities. Besides studying, I write science-related stories and articles, and experiment with online startups with the purpose of promoting scientific curiosity in the public.

Suk Joo Ko

MSc| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am Suk Joo Ko, a MSc Graduate formerly based at the Cosmic Dawn Center where I was advised by Johan Fynbo. I received my Bachelor degree in 2017 from University of Copenhagen advised by Sune Toft at the Dark Cosmology Centre.

My master’s thesis is focused on the spectroscopy of red quasars, the selection of quasars of red spectral energy. The motivation is to study missed population of red quasars from previous technique of selecting quasars.

I chose to write my thesis at DAWN to learn techniques of observational astrophysics and study the early Universe, galaxies and quasars.

André Endrup Hartwigsen

MSc| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a MSc graduate from the Cosmic Dawn Center supervised by Johan Peter Uldall Fynbo and Bo Milvang-Jensen. My thesis searched for Lyman break galaxies at the epoch of reionization aiming for redshifts beyond 8. The specific focus was on finding Lyman alpha emitter subsiding at redshift 8.8, with peaks located in the 1.18 micron NB118 filter from UltraVISTA DR4. This was achieved with preliminary access to the COSMOS2020 catalogs. My bachelor’s degree were multiple numerical simulations of a DAMIC experiment shield, meant to protect highly important silicon from cosmic rays during transport, to avoid tritium production. Supervised by Mogens Dam and Børge Svane Nielsen.

I enjoy working with large quantities of data and get very deeply involved in coding and the search for accurate and significant results. I originate from the southwest of Jutland and found my passion for astronomy and the universe, through manual observations using my own telescope, taking advantage of the dark skies in this area of Denmark.

Charlie Meinertz

MSc Student| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am a masters student writing my thesis with Mette Vindbæk Madsen as my thesis-partner and Johan Fynbo as our advisor. Our thesis is on strong emission line galaxies in the COSMOS survey. We aim to investigate and categorize the nature of galaxies selected from the catalogue data using narrowband colour excess in the UltraVISTA NB118 filter.

Personally, my interests are in the observational side of astrophysics, and data analysis techniques, especially working with large datasets and finding the golden nuggets of science within. I hope to continue my studies as a PhD-student and eventually end up as a researcher in astrophysics.

Jiaming Yao

MSc Student | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

I am a Master student who working on my thesis under the direction of Francesco Valentino and Georgios Magdis. My current research focuses on selecting out quiescent galaxies from data and obtaining multiple properties of them by studying SEDs. Exploring these "dead" galaxies can help us get a glimpse of the early universe and learn how galaxies evolve. My interests focus on observation and data analysis.

Han Lei 

MSc Student | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

I am a second-year master student currently working on my thesis, supervised by Francesco Valentino and Georgios Magdis at DAWN. My research is on a complete census of molecular gas in normal main-sequence galaxy D49 at z=3. By comparing it with extreme starburst galaxies at the same redshift and with other closer main-sequence objects, we expect to gain insight into the physics regulating the star formation in both extreme and normal populations across redshifts.

Nina Bonaventura

Postdoc | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am an astrophysics post-doctoral researcher at the Cosmic Dawn Center working with Dr. Peter Jakobsen on the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) onboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a joint mission of NASA and the European and Canadian Space Agencies. In preparation for the March 2021 launch of JWST, I design algorithms to optimize observations taken in the NIRSpec Multi-object Spectroscopy (MOS) mode, alongside my international collaborators on the NIRSpec Guaranteed-Time Observer (GTO) Team. I am also involved in various studies of galaxy formation and evolution with members of the Dawn team, as well as the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS) collaboration.

I received my PhD degree in Physics in 2017 from McGill University under the supervision of Dr. Tracy Webb (McGill Space Institute), for my contribution to the unexpected discovery of significant star formation activity occurring within a special class of galaxies previously known to be ‘dead’ and inactive.

Previously, I held a NASA Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Data Specialist position at the Chandra X-ray Center, working on a variety of scientific and technical projects as a member of the Science Data Systems team. I have also worked as a telescope support scientist at Lowell Observatory while a graduate Master’s student at Boston University, personally utilizing and assisting others in the operation of infrared and optical imaging and spectroscopic instruments.

Francesco Valentino

I am an assistant professor based at the Cosmic Dawn Center. I study the evolution of massive galaxies from their initial formation to the last stages of their lives, exploiting the capabilities of powerful telescopes covering the whole electromagnetic spectrum. I am particularly interested in how gas is transformed into stars and how galaxies die, ceasing the formation of new stars. This is the core of my “Galaxies: Rise And Death” (GRAD) project supported by the Carlsberg Foundation for the coming years 2019-2021.

I moved to Copenhagen as a DARK fellow at the Dark Cosmology Centre and then I joined the Cosmic Dawn Center as a DAWN fellow, working in close collaboration with Prof. Georgios Magdis on the project “Gas to Stars - Stars to Dust: Tracing star formation across cosmic time” supported by a Velux Foundation Grant.

I obtained my PhD in 2016 from the Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7) under the supervision of Dr. Emanuele Daddi at the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA) in Saclay.

Seiji Fujimoto

I am a DAWN fellow based at the Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute. I received my BCs (2014), MSc (2016), and PhD (2019) degrees from the University of Tokyo, under the supervision of Prof. Masami Ouchi. The thesis title was “Demographics of Cold Universe with ALMA: From Inter-stellar and Circum-galactic Media to Cosmic Structures”, where I carried out a large statistical study for the rest-frame far-infrared properties in high-redshift galaxies. After my PhD, I worked at the University of Waseda with Prof. Akio Inoue as an ALMA project researcher. I am living in Copenhagen as of December 2019.

My research interest is the early Universe, including the topics of the formation and evolution of massive galaxies and black holes, the structure formation, and the interplay between a galaxy and its environment.  I’m working in international projects of e.g., “The ALMA Large Program to Investigate CII at Early Times (ALPINE)”,  “ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey (ALCS)”,  and “Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP)”. I also work as one of the external collaborators in the cosmology group in Scuola Normale Superiore headed by Prof. Andrea Ferrara.

You will find more details on my personal website.

Iary Davidzon

I am a DAWN fellow at the Cosmic Dawn Center, working with Sune Toft and his group on several projects based on ultra-deep extragalactic observations collected under the name of Cosmic Dawn Survey.

My main goal is to leverage this exquisite data in the exploration of the first 2-3 billion years of universe’s life, investigating star formation mechanisms in primeval galaxies, especially the most massive ones. I am also interested in the connection of these baryonic processes to the underlying dark matter structure. I study galaxy environment also in large-scale surveys (VIPERS) and galaxy clusters (BUFFALO).

Before moving to Copenhagen I joined Peter Capak’s group at the California Institute of Technology, contributing to introduce novel machine learning methods in the research field of galaxy evolution. Previously I worked in Marseille (France) within the COSMOS collaboration, and before that I was a graduate student in Bologna, where I obtained my PhD in 2014 under the supervision of Micol Bolzonella and Lauro Moscardini. 

In the spare time I like playing ukulele and tinkering with my bikes, which is a quite appropriate hobby now that I live in (probably) the best cycling city in the world.

Jonatan Selsing

Postdoc | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Current employer: Novo Nordisk (Data Scientist)}

I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Cosmic Dawn Center employed under a DFF grant to D. Watson. I received my PhD degree in 2018 from the Dark Cosmology Centre under the supervision of Dr. Lise Christensen. My research has been centered around the transient universe and how these events shape the cosmo-chemical evolution history of our Universe.

I have made conclusive contribution to the discovery that was named the Science Breakthrough of the year 2017, and continue to play an important role in the follow-up of gravitational wave counterparts through my role as instrument specialist in the ENGRAVE consortium. Additional to my strong interest in the gravitational wave counterparts, I take an active part in the follow-up of Gamma-Ray Bursts, where I use facilities in both Chile under ESO, but also on La Palma at the NOT telescope. I regularly give public outreach talk to the public and produce to popular scientific magazines.
Outside academia, I am married to Malene. Together we have Marie and Ellen, our two wonderful daughters.

Daniel Ceverino

Assistant Professor & DAWN fellow | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
Current employment: Researcher: University of Madrid

Born in Sevilla (Spain), Daniel Ceverino focuses on the formation of first galaxy using cosmological hydro-dynamical simulations. He is the Principal Investigator of the FirstLight project that aims to follow the formation of the first galaxies in the early Universe. These galaxies will be observed by future telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and this project will make detailed predictions about the properties of these first galaxies. His general research interests include galaxy and star formation, as well as related feedback processes.

Before coming to DAWN, Dr Ceverino was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (Heidelberg, Germany) and a ‘Juan de la Cierva’ fellow in the department of theoretical physics of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). Previously, he did a Post-Doc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) in the cosmology group of Prof. Avishai Dekel. In 2008, Dr Ceverino finished his PhD thesis at New Mexico State University (USA), under the supervision of Prof. Anatoly Klypin,

Kimihiko Nakajima

DAWN Fellow | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
Current employer: National Observatory of Japan

I am a DAWN Fellow based at the Cosmic Dawn Center. I received my PhD degree in 2014 from the University of Tokyo advised by K. Shimasaku and M. Ouchi. My main research focus is the sources of Cosmic Reionization.

My interest also includes the stellar population, inter-stellar medium conditions in galaxies, and their evolution across comic time, through spectroscopic observation in conjunction with photo-ionization modelling.

I am a member of international collaborations of the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey and the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program.
Previously, I worked as a post-doc fellow at the Geneva Observatory, European Southern Observatory, and the  National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. I also stayed at the University College London as a senior visiting scientist.
 

Christian Kragh Jespersen

Content Creator/Undergraduate Research| The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen}

I am an undergraduate physics student based at the University of Copenhagen. I have been working at DAWN since November 18, primarily overseeing the website, solving different day-to-day tasks and contributing my own research working with Professor Charles Steinhardt on classifying Gamma Ray Bursts. Furthermore, I have worked with Professor David J. Stevenson at Caltech on the dynamics of hot planetary interiors

Beyond academia, I am a member of the Danish Youth Association of Science, where I dedicate my time to primarily PR and teaching high school – students with a particular interest in physics. In extension to this, I arrange inspiration lectures for physics students every Friday afternoon. I also enjoy many different kinds of watersports, having been on the Danish National Windsurfing Team for quite a long time, along with rock climbing, linguistics (having lived many different places) and general puzzle solving.

Hans Ulrik Nørgaard-Nielsen

Senior Scientist | The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN)
_{DTU - Space, Technical University of Denmark}

I received from Masters Degree in  July 1976 and my PhD in December 1981 from Copenhagen University Observatory. Since 1999 I have had a senior scientist position at DTU Space.

I have been Principal   Investigator for the Planck Reflector Programme  and for the JWST MIRI Primary Support Structure. I have been member of the Planck Science Team since 1997 and Chairman of the MIRI High – z Universe Working Group since 2010.
 
My scientific interest is concentrated on the early phases of the evolution of the Universe, by exploiting the Planck CMB temperature and polarization data and on the planned MIRI Deep Imaging Survey.