Dr. Gurtina Besla’s research focuses on the formation and evolution of low mass dwarf galaxies. Through numerical simulations, Dr. Besla explores the impact of gravitational interactions on the observed properties of low mass galaxies in various environments.

Dr. Besla is a world expert in the study of the closest example of an interacting pair of dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Gurtina’s research on these galaxies has overturned conventional wisdom, illustrating that the Magellanic Clouds are likely recent interlopers in our neighborhood rather than long term companions to our Galaxy.

Dr. Chi-kwan Chan (CK) is an Associate Astronomer/Research Professor at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, and has been serving as the Secretary of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Science Council since 2020. He recently led the publication of the computational and theoretical modeling/interpretation of our black hole, Sgr A*. Professor Chan created EHT’s computational and data processing infrastructure and continues to lead it to this day, along with EHT’s Software and Data Compatibility Working Group.

CK is a Senior Investigator of Black Hole PIRE, a leader of the Theoretical Astrophysics Program TAP, a Data Science Fellow, and a member of the Applied Mathematics Program. 

Dr. Klein’s research focuses on studying fundamental plasma phenomena that governs the dynamics of systems within our heliosphere as well as more distant astrophysical bodies. He has particular interest in identifying heating and energization mechanisms in turbulent plasmas, such as the Sun’s extended atmosphere known as the solar wind, as well as evaluating the effects of the departure from local thermodynamic equilibrium on nearly collisionless plasmas which are ubiquitous in space environments. As part of this work, Prof. Klein is a co-developer of the Arbitrary Linear Plasma Solver (ALPS) numerical dispersion solver, an open source code used for quantifying the behavior of such non-equilibrium systems.

These systems are studied with a combination of analytic theory and numerical simulation, including large-scale nonlinear turbulence codes such as AstroGK, HVM, and gkeyll. These theoretical predictions are compared to in situ observations from spacecraft including NASA’s Wind, MMS and Parker Solar Probe mission, as well as the upcoming HelioSwarm mission, which will fly nine spacecraft between the Earth and moon to characterize the transport and dissipation of turbulent energy in space plasmas. By comparing theory with local plasma measurements, we aim to answer a variety of questions about the behavior of plasma in our solar system.

Dr. Gralla works on a variety of problems in gravitational physics, plasma physics and astrophysics, with an emphasis on the regime where gravity and electromagnetism are strong. A unifying theme is that strong fields make for interesting physics and theoretical simplification that enables clean study of important processes.

Sam likes to work on problems that have both intrinsic interest and astrophysical application. Recent interests have included the two-body problem in general relativity, electromagnetic and gravitational self-force effects on the motion of bodies, strong-field (force-free) plasmas and quantum-electrodynamical corrections, and physics near rapidly rotating black holes.

Dr. Mathieu Renzo, Assistant Professor at the Steward Observatory / Astronomy Department at the University of Arizona and received his Ph.D. in Amsterdam.  Dr. Renzo is a physicist with interest in astronomy because of the wide range of phenomena and processes occurring astrophysical context. He focuses mostly on stellar astrophysics, and in particular massive stars, binary evolution, and stellar explosions. His research interest include stellar kinematics (runaway, “walkaway”, and hyper-velocity stars), core-collapse and (pulsational) pair-instability supernovae, X-ray binaries, time-domain and gravitational-wave astronomy. Mathieu mainly uses analytical and numerical simulations to understand massive star evolution, their explosions, and how they interact in binary systems. He uses both detailed stellar structure and evolution models (e.g., with MESA, and rapid population synthesis (e.g., with binary c or COSMIC). Mathieu is learning to run hydrodynamical simulations (with ATHENA++).

Dr. Rozo is an experimental cosmologist, utilizing large scale structure probes to better understand the physics behind the accelerated expansion of the Universe: that is, since gravity pulls, how is it possible for the expansion of the Universe to be accelerating? As of today, there are only two plausible solutions: either the energy budget of the Universe is dominated by a previously unknown form of mass—energy, or general relativity fails to be the correct description of gravity on cosmological scales. Resolving this dichotomy is the single most pressing question in observational cosmology today.

Eduardo’s research directly addresses this problem by utilizing the abundance galaxy clusters as a cosmological. His research exploits both photometric (e.g. Dark Energy Survey and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), spectroscopic (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument), and multi-wavelength data (Planck, South Pole Telescope, X-ray data from Chandra and XMM) to better understand this observational probe, and thereby safeguard against systematic uncertainties.