What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I have being working in different working groups and participating in different tasks since 2015. Now I am mainly involved in the galaxy clustering and Cosmo Simulation working groups, but some time ago also contributed to some tasks of C3. Since 2019, I am co-leading the DESI Mock Challenge with Shadab Alam and Albert Chuang. I am leading the Mock Challenge in Reconstruction and Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations. Also, I am currently the chair of the meetings committee and I participate in the DEI committee as the liaison with the meetings committee but also because I am interested in inclusiveness and equity in academy.
Where were you born and where do you live now?
I was born in Mexico City. I did my bachelor’s in Facultad de Ciencias UNAM. Then I did my graduate studies in France (Universite Paris-XI and then Universite Paris VII in Laboratory APC). After finishing my studies I moved to the US in Pittsburgh, where I did a post-doctoral position in Mc William Center of Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon University. Then I came back to Mexico City where I am in a tenure track position for the past 7 years at Instituto de Fisica at UNAM.
What do you do as part of DESI?
I am working on the main observables of DESI: BAO and RSD. I am now co-leading the Mock Challenge and in particular I’m coordinating the Mock Challenge of Reconstruction and BAO. Currently I am focused on working on the publications that summarize two years of this effort. I am also helping in the preparation of SV3 mocks, in particular applying the FA to those mocks with the footprint of Year 1. I am also co-advising several students of our group of Observational Cosmology at UNAM to participate in DESI. For the last 2 years I worked with a masters student on the effects of Fiber Assignment with simulations and exploring mitigation techniques with LRG, and now working on the pipeline to apply the fiber assigning to mocks. I am currently co-advising a graduate student for participating in the RSD mock Challenge and another graduate student participating in the BAO mock Challenge. Also, I am working with another graduate student on the generation of simulations with non Gaussianities and their analysis in the context of DESI. Another student of our group is working on the effect of massive neutrinos in the large scale structure with the goal to apply this to DESI and potentially 2 more students will start soon as well to work on another project related to forward reconstruction in the context of DESI.
What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
I really enjoy working within collaborations, I’m very happy to be able to discuss with experts in the field weekly I consider there is a lot of interaction and community feeling. I like the possibility to meet people from different parts of the world and different experience and expertise. I grown within these large collaborations my whole academic life, for me, the collaboration is like my academic family. I learned from the experts when I was a graduate student in the BOSS times, then I became a postdoc and I continued working and learning in the context of BOSS. I increased my network of collaborators thanks to the constant interaction within the collaborations as a postdoc. Now as a junior assistant professor I am trying to transmit my knowledge acquired over the years and potentiate the development of the early career scientist and also continue learning as a medium career scientist I consider myself.
Any advice for an aspiring scientist/engineer?
Collaborate with others, science is a collaborative effort. Collaborations are a great environment to learn and interact with experts all over the world, profit of this network of experts, ask as many questions as you want, scientist are always learning, do not be shy or be shamed of asking questions, join projects, try new ideas, have fun with research now and worry less about the future, you will define your way as you walk through it. Open all the possibilities and never close a door.
What do you do for fun?
I like to practice yoga and dance. I also like biking, hiking in the mountains and running. I started boxing lessons recently, and zumba but also I am trying to go the gym more often. When I have time I like to cook, and garden. I also have a violin and I would like to learn how to play it one day, I like to sing but I am not that good (it seems). I also have two big dogs always willing to play and walk the streets of the busy Mexico City.
