Paul is a senior Physics major with minors in Astrophysics and Mathematics. He is the recipient of the Merck Undergraduate Fellowship.

Relative Velocity Distribution of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Major Mergers

My project involves gathering and cleaning a sample of high mass ratio (major) galaxy mergers and determining the relative velocities between the galaxies in each merger. Using this sample of mergers, I also search for a way to distinguish between true mergers and galaxy pairs that only appear to be interacting due to a projection effect without needing spectroscopic information.

My mentor is Dr. Adi Foord in the Physics department. I have a general interest in astrophysics, which aligns with Dr. Foord’s research related to active galactic nuclei and galaxy mergers. I first heard of her research from another professor in the department and because of our similar interests reached out to talk about research.

This project was interesting to me since galaxy mergers are thought to be an important mechanism for the evolution of galaxies. So, learning more about mergers could help answer deeper questions about galaxies, supermassive black holes, and active galactic nuclei. Participating in this project also seemed like a great way to get familiar with handling and interpreting astrophysical data.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? 

Throughout my time working on this project, I have realized how important it is to have good organization, particularly when working with a large sample of data. Oftentimes I would need to return to and reference my previous work, which if not documented properly can be difficult.

I have enjoyed being able to talk about my research and learn about others’ research during group meetings. It has helped me not only with getting experience with sharing my results, but also get more informed about current research in the field and learn about what other members of the research group are working on.

I will be presenting about my research both at URCAD and at the 245th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting, in the form of a poster. I am also writing a paper which will be submitted for publication to the Astrophysical Journal.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?  

I would recommend keeping good track of what work you do each day towards your research project. If you are writing code, it is very useful to be organized and write comments so that it is easy to go back and reuse it.

I hope to go into a career researching physics, possibly as a professor or as a contractor for some research facility. To this end, I have applied to some graduate physics programs and hope to attend graduate school starting next Fall.