meet a DESI member

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am currently co-chair of one of the working groups in DESI (alongside Rossana Ruggeri) and our job is to oversee projects that are joint between DESI and other experiments of, for example, the cosmic microwave background (CMB, i.e., the oldest light in the Universe) and weak lensing (i.e., the bending of light due to gravity, which induces an apparent change to the shapes of galaxies).

 

Where were you born?
I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria.

 

Where do you live now?
I live in Berkeley, California.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
I make sure that our main science goals are reached by overseeing the so-called key projects of the collaboration; I analyze data jointly with CMB probes to study the gas distribution and inform weak lensing analysis; I apply galaxy-halo models to the small-scale clustering analysis; I also develop simulation tools on the AbacusSummit suite.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
The excitement of new discoveries (be it small or big); working towards a common goal with a bunch of great people.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Figure out what makes you the happiest work-wise and really try your best to do that.

 

What do you do for fun?
Play the guitar, sing, listen to audiobooks, bike a lot.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I might work at an NPO, or be a linguist. Something with lots of people-to-people communication.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
The discovery space on small scales; doing things that no one else has done yet (I know this is vague, but this could include new probes, or higher sensitivity that allows us to learn new things about the Universe)

 

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am one of the infrastructure contributors in the DESI lensing topical group (part of the c3 working group).

 

Where were you born?
I was born in a city close to Barcelona, Spain.

 

Where do you live now?
I have been moving to several countries in the last few years as a postdoc. I am currently living in Madrid, Spain.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
In the DESI lensing topical group, I am leading the main 3x2pt LCDM cosmological analysis, in which we will combine projected galaxy clustering from DESI with weak lensing from DES, KiDS, and HSC.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
It is a privilege (and very exciting) to be able to work with so many talented people on the cosmological exploitation of new high-quality data, such as the DESI catalogs.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
The most important thing is to have good mentors/advisors and to prioritize your mental health.

 

What do you do for fun?
I am an indoor person. I really enjoy playing video games and reading fantasy books to disconnect and relax.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I have always liked drawing, and there are some artists in my family, so in another life, I would have tried to focus on that. This was actually one of my hobbies years ago.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
We already have very exciting results just from the first year of observations! I cannot wait to see all the cosmological results that will come out after the DESI observations finish.

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I’m a PhD student at the University of Rochester working with my advisors Segev BenZvi and Kelly Douglass. I’m involved with the Galaxy and Quasar Clustering working group and the Alternative Clustering Methods topical group.

 

Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. I’ve also lived in San Antonio, Texas; Syracuse, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and now, finally, Rochester, New York.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
I’m creating catalogs of cosmic voids. Voids are large regions of the universe that are tens of millions of lightyears across and have very little matter in them. The number of voids of different sizes that we expect to see is affected by the behavior of dark energy, so we can use voids to learn more about dark energy models. I’m using DESI data to map out where the universe’s cosmic voids are located, with the goal of studying dark energy.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
I love being able to visualize the universe on its largest size scales. With computer programs, I can illustrate the locations of thousands of voids in the nearby universe, and with DESI’s data, I’ll expand these maps to cover even larger populations of voids at further distances away from us.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Have fun exploring a broad range of topics to get a sense of what you love the most and what you might want to do for a career. When you go to college, try to find other students and friends in your science classes who you can work with and learn from. Science degrees can be difficult to get, but having a community of people who are in it together with you helps a lot.

 

What do you do for fun?
I like writing science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
It would be fun to be an author alongside being a scientist.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
I love that DESI is a huge, worldwide collaboration involving novel science, intricate engineering,  in-person collaboration meetings, dedicated science outreach, and fascinating visualizations of survey data. It’s great to be part of such a big project!

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am a PhD student and currently contributing to cosmic void projects in DESI, specifically testing and validating the FirstGen simulations and investigating the systematics within them. I have led a similar project in DES, and in DESI, we aim to use DESI Legacy Survey DR9 data to probe high redshift voids and their cross-correlations on the CMB. This will further shed light on CMB lensing or ISW imprints from cosmic voids.

 

Where were you born?
I was born in Istanbul, Turkey. The Asian side of Istanbul, to be specific 🙂

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Finding something new, previously unknown, albeit small, and contributing to the knowledge of humanity. Sharing these results with others at conferences and hearing their opinions is also a fun part.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Science is undoubtedly a collaborative effort and mostly driven by curiosity, so it is important to choose a topic you are very interested in and collaborate with people you would like to work with. This is an important part of the job. You will face many barriers and problems, so it is important to be resilient and solve the problems as they arise.

 

What do you do for fun?
I am an avid hiker and traveler, and I try to hike and travel as much as possible. I particularly enjoy snowboarding and have climbed some 6000-meter peaks in the past. Recently, I have become interested in sailing as well. In addition, I enjoy drone photography and wildlife photography, and I have been to Africa a few times.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
In the past, I considered being a guitarist, to be honest! But I was very interested in science, particularly physics and astronomy, so I decided to pursue science. I think I would be a good entrepreneur as well, as I always come up with new ideas.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
I think DESI’s ability to measure the dark energy equation of state excites most of us, including me. The fact that it has significant potential to indicate new physics or validate our current cosmological model is a great excitement for many of us.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am one of the early career scientists using the data from DESI and other telescopes to derive interesting results about our Universe!

 

Where were you born?
Santiago, Chile

 

Where do you live now?
California, USA

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
I am currently leading one of the kinematic Sunyaev Zel’dovich measurements using DESI galaxies and the Cosmic Microwave Background map from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope.

Galaxies have a gaseous halo surrounding them, which is challenging to observe. Creative and prolific scientists like Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov B. Zeldovich suggested that it is possible to see it by studying the effect this produces in a background light. There is a perfect candidate to be this background, which is the Cosmic Microwave Background. This is a relic and smooth source of light at microwave frequencies, emitted when the Universe was 380,000 years old! A way of visualizing this effect is to think of galaxies as part of a shadow theater, where the Cosmic Microwave Background illuminates the scenario from the back. There is an additional thing to mention: if these galaxies were steady, this effect would not be as powerful as it could be. Luckily, galaxies have what we call “peculiar velocities”, meaning they move on top of the expansion of the Universe. When combining the velocities of galaxies and the  Cosmic Microwave Background, we can study the gas of galaxies. This is the kinematic Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect!

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
What I found extremely interesting from my job as a graduate student is that my meetings are about discussing fundamental physics and ideas of the Universe, as I always dreamed of.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
To aspiring scientists I would recommend them to learn English as much as they can in their earlier careers. As a non-native speaker I have been on multiple occasions in which I do not understand what people are asking/answering. I also want to tell them it is okay to ask if something is not clear!

 

What do you do for fun?
I like taking analog pictures and developing them in a darkroom. I also love doing scientific outreach and using social media to spread scientific knowledge.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I would have loved to be an actress or a philosopher.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
It is incredible to think how many galaxies it has detected in such a short time! The first results are already astonishing. I am so impressed we can see so deep into the past of our Universe just by looking from Earth.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I’m a postdoctoral research fellow working on finding and studying the long-term properties of tidal disruption events. You can think of this as listening for the echoing screams of a star being torn apart by a black hole it has had the misfortune of drifting too close to! In reality it’s about finding the specific pattern of light these events leave in the spectrum of the galaxy in which they happen. As part of this work, I’m a member of the ‘Transients and Low-Redshift Cosmology’ and ‘Galaxy and Quasar Physics’ working groups and am co-lead of the QSO/AGN Topical Group, helping to co-ordinate broader work looking into what the supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies get up to.

 

Where were you born?
I was born in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena and whilst I might have left, I carry the accent with me.

 

Where do you live now?
I currently live in Portsmouth on the south coast of England close to the University of Portsmouth where I’m part of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
My day-to-day is a mixture of different things. It can be looking through the spectra of galaxies that might contain the signature of an ongoing tidal disruption event to discover and classify new events. I might also use DESI data to follow-up on existing events to see how they have evolved and what that can tell us about them. I also do a lot of computer coding to search for the most interesting objects -with the millions of spectra DESI gathers no one can look through them all! – and to process the data to learn as much as possible both from individual objects and what they can reveal as a group.

As a Topical Group co-ordinator, I also have a role in making sure those of us working on supermassive black holes are aware of what is being worked on by others in DESI so we can learn from each other and move forward as efficiently as possible.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
As the objects I investigate are so far off into the universe, it takes their light a very, very long time to reach us here on Earth. So, in a way it’s like using a time machine, as what DESI picks up from the galaxy ‘now’ is from a time long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. As my research focuses on individual events, what they can tell us about the galaxies they occurred in and the physical processes that drive some of the most extreme events in the universe, it’s like being a time traveling accident investigator which I think is pretty cool.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
DESI is collecting a truly monumental amount of data, with spectra for millions of galaxies. With a dataset like this we are able to learn a lot more about the rarest types of galaxy, performing studies that just aren’t possible using the small numbers of such objects that have been discovered by chance up to this point. It also goes without saying that with so many galaxies being explored, we are bound to discover things we didn’t even know to look for!

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
I think my two pieces of advice would be:

1) Get as much experience with computer coding as you can. Science and coding are very tightly linked and the more experience you have the easier you will find it to take on new problems. It’s also not as daunting to learn as you might think, and the satisfaction of getting a new piece of code working makes all the challenges worth it.

2) Believe in yourself – there isn’t one path to success. If you have a goal in mind there can be multiple ways to get there and feel free to reach out to people in the field, I’m sure they will be happy to offer advice and support.

 

What do you do for fun?
I’m an avid RPG and strategy gamer with ‘Starfield’ and ‘Stellaris’ being a couple of my go-to’s, with Pokémon having a strong grip on me as well. I find spending time with my friends at a local pub or restaurant is an excellent way to unwind after a busy week. There is also little better than curling up with a cup of tea and watching a good movie or TV program – ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘The Traitors’ being my current favourites.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
Now that’s a tough one. Being an astronomer has been my dream job since I was about four years old so I’d have to go with a veterinarian.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am the co-leads of the absorber topical group and used to serve on the Early-Career-Scientists committee.

 

Where were you born?
I was born in Hunan, China.

 

Where do you live now?
I live in Beijing now.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Always seek new knowledge, identify new objects, and interpret their originality.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
As the co-leads of the absorber topical group, I help coordinate related science projects and strengthen communication between the quasar-galaxy physics working group and the Lya working group. As a researcher, I worked on quasar and galaxy science projects, analyzed DESI data, and contributed to DESI’s observation and outreach activities (please see the DESI planetarium film)!

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Stay curious and chat with people in all fields.

 

What do you do for fun?
Sports, music (playing the Erhu, a Chinese classical instrument, and having limited skills on the guitar 🙂 and traveling.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
Astronaut or architect.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
Mapping the universe with the most details (especially stars and galaxies!)

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am an Early Career Scientist (ECS) working mainly as a part of the Data, Education and Public Outreach, and Galaxy and Quasar Physics Working Groups. Currently, I co-lead the Anomaly Detection Topical Group.

 

 Where were you born and Where do you live now?
I was born in Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, South America, and I currently live there.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
In DESI, my Ph.D. work involves using machine and deep learning techniques with DESI observation data. I contribute to the Data Working Group by developing an algorithm based on unsupervised machine learning to identify anomaly spectra in DESI observations. This technique is valuable for the reduction pipeline to identify outliers related to instrumental errors or new physics. Additionally, I work on predicting physical features of galaxies, such as Redshift, using photometric and spectroscopic data to train deep learning models. I’m also involved in characterizing the distribution of bright galaxies z<∼0.5 into the Dark Matter cosmic web.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
The most interesting aspect of my job is the fusion of new technologies with physics. The constant innovation in technology provides exciting tools, gadgets, and algorithms that, when combined with physics, create an amazing synergy.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Be creative. Maintain your love for science and nurture your creativity; they are essential engines for contributing to science and humanity.

 

What do you do for fun?
For fun, I enjoy exploring different cuisines, experimenting with recipes. Occasionally, I practice photography and painting, even though I’m not a professional.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
If I weren’t a scientist, my dream job would be a Chef, specializing in various cuisines, or an artist focusing on the intersection of art and technology.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
What excites me the most about DESI is the enormous amount of data to be observed, the scale and resolution of these observations are impressive, and everything hidden behind this data is intriguing. Being part of this collaboration brings me immense happiness.

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am a 4th year PhD student working in the Milky Way Survey (MWS) group. I am also the co-chair of Early Career Scientists (ECS) committee and one of the organizers of DESI research forum talks.

 

Where were you born and Where do you live now?
I was born in Kerala, a South Indian state renowned for its swaying coconut palms, pristine backwaters, and vibrant festivals. After my masters in Bangalore, India, I moved to Taiwan where I am currently doing my PhD at the National Tsing Hua University.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
I work on generating mock catalogues that match the selection criteria of MWS from high resolution AURIGA cosmological zoom simulations. These mocks are realizations of a DESI-like survey conducted in a simulated Milky Way – like galaxy, and can be used to test methods for studying the properties of our stellar halo, the substructures in it and finally, the assembly history of our Galaxy. Besides working on my project, I also organize research forum talks, help with ECS activities and take Support Observer shifts for DESI.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Astronomy allows us to explore the unknown. Every observation is a small step towards understanding something new, something unique about our Universe. Within this infinite Universe, my love lies closer to home. I am excited to study how our Galaxy formed, its structure and its evolutionary history. Being part of a large collaboration, using a very sophisticated instrument, working with people I admire, someone I have known from the classes I took, or papers I have read is more than exciting.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Never give up on anything you love because of anyone. There will be a lot of ups and downs on the way, but it is all part of a learning process. Talk to people in all career stages, it builds up communication skills, helps in making new collaborations or guide you when you are in need. Always stay updated with what is happening in your field. Enjoy every small thing you learn. Most importantly, prioritize your physical and mental health above everything else.
What do you do for fun?
There are five things I enjoy spending time for: hanging out with people I am close to, having food (and watching others cook), a good movie, travel (anywhere other than crowded cities filled with concrete buildings) and music. I love to read books, blogging and photography, all of which are unfortunately taking a back seat lately.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
Being an astronomer has always been my love. But if not that, social work has been something that has captured my interest (I have had an eye on the social work program of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India since a long time).

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
I am someone who was born in a small village, studied in a modest school, enjoyed colorful pictures of stars and galaxies, dream about being an astronomer, and today, as a member of DESI, I interact and collaborate with people who have made enormous contributions to this field. There is nothing more exciting than a dream come true.

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I have only recently joined the DESI project. I am very interested to contribute to the synergy between DESI and the  large upcoming space-based surveys in the infrared such as Euclid, SPHEREx and the surveys with the Roman Space Telescope. I would also be excited to serve on the Publication Board, to which I can bring my extensive experience as Associate Editor for PASA.

 

Where were you born?
In Rimnicu Vilcea, Romania, which is a town just below the Carpathian Mountains.

 

Where do you live now?
I live in Durham, which is in the North East of England, and home to the beautiful Durham Cathedral.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
Since I have only recently joined, I am still navigating my way around in this very large collaboration, trying to understand the different activities to which I could sensibly contribute. My expertise is in optical and near-IR spectroscopy of AGN and the study of their inner structure using time-domain astronomy. I eagerly follow the many publications coming out of the project and hope to be able to join meetings soon. But, unfortunately, it is too late for me to make travel arrangements to come to the DESI meeting in Hawaii in December.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
The most exciting thing about being an astronomer is that no day is like the other. The job might get frustrating at times, but it surely is never boring. If I have a new idea on what I would like to research and publish, I can just do it.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
For an answer I would like to quote from Max Weber, a German sociologist, who wrote in “Science as a vocation” (1917): ” … Do you in all conscience believe that you can stand seeing mediocrity after mediocrity, year after year, climb beyond you, without becoming embittered and without coming to grief? Naturally, one always receives the answer: ‘Of course, I live only for my “calling.” ‘ Yet, I have found that only a few men could endure this situation without coming to grief. …”

 

What do you do for fun?
I like to spend time with my children. Listening to their views and ideas and seeing their need to express themselves in art is fascinating.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I cannot imagine myself not being a scientist.  I find that it is most rewarding and exhilarating to discover for the first time even the smallest part of Nature’s hidden secrets.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
I am excited about DESI’s possibility to measure the neutrino masses. But, of course, the possibility that we might soon have a satisfactory answer to the profound question of the nature of Dark Energy, which will come from DESI but also from other facilities working towards it, such as Euclid and LSST, makes me think that we live in historic times!

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at National Taiwan University, where I lead a project within the Galaxy Quasar Physics Working Group and the Absorbers Topical Group. The project aims to study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of massive radio galaxies using DESI spectra.

 

Where were you born?
I was born in Taipei City and grew up in Taoyuan City, Taiwan.

 

Where do you live now?
Currently, I live in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei is the economic and cultural hub of Taiwan, seamlessly blends modern urbanity with a rich historical heritage.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
I am using DESI quasar spectra to investigate the impacts of radio-mode feedback on the CGM by analyzing the absorption lines in the spectra. By studying the properties of CGMs, we could understand how the feedback affects the gas around galaxies and regulate the growth of massive galaxies. I am also a member of the DEI committee within DESI. The DEI committee is dedicated to combating the marginalization of underrepresented minorities, addressing issues having to do with inclusion within the collaboration.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Exploring the mysteries of the universe is the most exciting part of my job, as it involves answering scientific questions that have intrigued us for a long time and constantly learning new things. I always enjoy discussing scientific topics and interacting with other astronomers.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Enjoy what you are doing. Not everyone may comprehend or appreciate your research topic, but if it’s something you’re truly passionate about, just go for it.

 

What do you do for fun?
I enjoy swimming and biking, engaging in these activities weekly. On weekends, I like to spend time with friends and family, like going shopping, having afternoon tea, and watching movies. Additionally, I have a passion for traveling, exploring the unique characteristics of different cities and cultures worldwide.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I have a wide range of interests. With my proficiency in teaching math—having served as a math tutor throughout college and graduate school—I might be teaching math if I hadn’t become an astronomer. Beyond my scientific pursuits, I am fascinated by history and diplomacy. If I had chosen to major in international relations, I could have pursued a career as a diplomat.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
DESI is expected to observe tens of millions of galaxies in the coming years, providing an extensive dataset for in-depth studies of their statistical properties. Moreover, DESI is able to observe fainter and more extreme galaxies than any other contemporary surveys. Exciting new scientific discoveries are certain to emerge from the wealth of data generated by the DESI survey.

 

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
Formerly the Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS) and Cosmosim co-chair. I am currently a Membership Committee co-chair.

 

Where were you born? Where do you live now? 
UK (North West). Durham.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
A lot of Membership committee admin! I am also exploiting the BGS with Durham students and postdocs to get new constraints on the galaxy dark matter connection and galaxy formation in general.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
The mix of technological advances that make it possible, the amazing data, and the talented collaborators.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist? 
Do what you find most interesting!

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Working with young enthusiastic scientists.

 

What do you do for fun?
Seeing new places, hiking, playing pool!

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
It is my dream job.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
As of September 2023 I am working on the standard clustering analysis of the DESI Y1 sample, administratively as co-convener of the cosmological parameter estimation (CPE) working group, together with Mustapha Ishak.

 

Where were you born?
I was born in the suburban area of a fairly enjoyable midsize city in the West of France, Nantes. It is a one-hour drive to the Atlantic Ocean, and not far from Brittany.

 

Where do you live now?
I am currently living in Paris, in the lively 14th district, which I recommend for its numerous convenient stores, its pretty small streets and its shared gardens.

 

What do you do as part of DESI?
In DESI I am currently working on the clustering pipeline, specifically helping out putting together codes (power spectrum, correlation function, reconstruction, cosmological inference) in a well-controlled environment at NERSC. For the time being I am also looking into the mitigation of fiber collisions for the Y1 analysis, and how to quote DESI cosmological constraints.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
I think I particularly like when we are making progress altogether — in a way that everyone can reproduce our results (hence my involvement in the infrastructure).

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Take some time to read the codes (if they exist already) that are of most importance to your own analysis — hopefully they are well written and you will learn a great deal both about coding practices and the details of your analysis. Please do not hesitate to ask for help.

 

What do you do for fun?
Cooking, hanging out with friends.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I have always been keen about space exploration (not colonization), rover or human missions. They illustrate what us humans can do best.

 

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
DESI really makes large scale structure a probe of precision cosmology. Beyond the thrilling scientific impact of DESI, we will have learnt a great deal about how to work altogether to produce the best analyses!

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am the Co-Chair of the Time Domain and Low Redshift Cosmology Working Group. My research group at Boston University ties together cosmological distance and velocity measurements of the universe with the fundamental physical properties such as dark energy, dark matter, ordinary matter, and Einstein’s general relativity. I have mostly specialized in using Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators and am leading the supernova teams in Pantheon+, SH0ES, DES, and DESI, and DEBASS.

 

Where were you born? Where do you live now? 
I am originally from North Carolina (USA) where I grew up. I studied Physics at Johns Hopkins University, did my PhD at University of Pennsylvania, and took a NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship to The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I’m excited to have recently moved to an assistant professor position in the Astronomy and Physics departments at Boston University, just down the road, where we are building out a new and exciting cosmology initiative.

 

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job? What excites/interests you most about DESI?
Now that our big Pantheon+ and SH0ES results have come out, when I’m not tending to keeping those datasets up-to-date and usable for the community, I’m focusing on low-redshift peculiar-velocity cosmology with distance indicators. Low-redshift peculiar-velocity cosmology is the most exciting thing to me going on in supernova cosmology right now. At low redshifts, the peculiar velocities dominate over the cosmic expansion, making them easier to measure accurately. This is because the cosmic expansion itself becomes less significant compared to the gravitational interactions within the local environment of galaxies. Consequently, the peculiar velocities provide a more precise probe of the gravitational pull exerted by nearby structures. By focusing on the low-redshift regime, scientists can effectively study the growth of structures and test general relativity with enhanced accuracy and sensitivity. This approach allows for a more detailed understanding of the large-scale structure formation in the universe and provides valuable insights into the nature of gravity on cosmological scales. DESI + Distance Indicators is uniquely positioned to make the best constraints in this regime.

 

Any advice for an aspiring scientist? 
If you want to push the field of cosmology forward within a collaboration like DESI, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty on projects in the critical path. These kinds of projects force you to be a versatile scientist and will snowball into greater and greater involvement in the central components of an analysis and people will rely on you which is good for getting the next job and also for becoming a leader!

 

What do you do for fun?
I like to play jazz saxophone. Back in undergrad I pursued a double degree with Jazz Saxophone at the Peabody Conservatory. I’ve been able to keep it going, playing and touring with a few bands over the last decade.

 

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
Musician (see above).

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University and fairly new in DESI. I collaborate on projects in the Galaxy & QSO working group.

Where were you born?
I was born and raised at a harbor city called Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

Where do you live now?
I live in Durham, United Kingdom where I work as postdoc at the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Durham University.

What do you do as part of DESI?
As a new member, I have not been involved with many projects yet. I just recently get involved with a project on the detection and characterization of absorption features in QSO spectra using visual inspection and machine learning techniques.

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
As an academic, our job is not just research. There are also many other works involved such as teaching, supervision, observation, meeting organizing, etc. Each of them attracts me for different reasons. For example, I found it’s really rewarding to support students and see their growth.

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Searching for your science questions, as it is the best motivation when feeling lost during this journey.

What do you do for fun?
I enjoy doing all kinds of sports and video games. In particular, I love volleyball and was playing in a team for many years. I also enjoy being a backpacker traveling to many places. Sometimes, I’d listen to music while walking and daydreaming, and it feels great.

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I have been strongly fascinated by three mysterious things—Universe, history, and ocean—since I was a kid. If I were not an astrophysicist, I’d probably become either an archaeologist or an oceanographer.

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
DESI (will) produces over millions of quasar (QSO) spectra. This huge amount of data can not only provide a great constraint to cosmological parameters as well as be used to investigate the environmental impact in galaxy evolution and formation.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I work in the DESI lensing topical group and I co-chair the DESI-II working group.

Where were you born?
Australia

Where do you live now?
Santa Cruz, California

What do you do as part of DESI?
My DESI work focuses on two things. First, together with the DESI lensing group, I am working on getting cosmological constraints for the Y1 data using galaxy clustering and galaxy lensing. Second, I am working in the DESI-II working group where we think about what science projects we could carry out after the end of the DESI 5 year survey.

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Learning about new things everyday. I love knowing that there is still so much to discover.

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
During your PhD, and postdoc years, it is important to specialize, and to “dig deep”. But after, don’t forget to also look around and see what else is going on. Try going to some talks in other departments and in other fields. Don’t ignore the bigger picture of the world in which we live.

What do you do for fun?
Activities with my kids, swimming, and gardening.

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I would be a permaculture farmer.

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
The fact that we have so much data! I did my PhD on a survey that was 2 square degrees, so I still marvel at how much data we have with DESI.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I’m the co-lead of the “DESI CMB cross correlation” topical group within the Clusters, Cosmology, and Cross-Correlation working group. I work on thinking about the relationship between DESI galaxies and the cosmic microwave background–the oldest light in the universe, which can be gravitationally lensed, scattered, Doppler-shifted, and gravitationally-redshifted by galaxies, their host dark matter halos, and the hot gas inside them.

Where were you born?
I was born in New York City and grew up in Irvine, California.

Where do you live now?
I live in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, just outside of the Toronto metro area. I’m a postdoc at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics and the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics.

What do you do as part of DESI?
Mainly, I think about how we can learn about cosmology from DESI galaxies and quasars gravitationally lensing the cosmic microwave background. Lately, I’ve been working on using the gravitational lensing of the CMB by DESI quasars as a clean probe of the largest scales of the Universe, where certain models for inflation can generate strong large-scale correlations. I’ve also worked on studying redshift failures and identifying bad fibers within the LSS Catalog/KP3 working group, and am involved in the DESI-weak lensing cross-correlations project.

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
Contributing to our scientific understanding of the cosmos. I enjoy the thought that our work today might help people in the future understand the universe better. Or it may not—that’s the nature of science! At the least, any paper adds (even if only very incrementally) to our vast corpus of knowledge of physics.

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Always try to maintain a skeptical attitude towards your own research work. There’s no answer key in research, so you always have to come up with tests to make sure that what you’re doing is correct!

What do you do for fun?
Running, hiking, following baseball, and classical music.

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
I like exploring landscapes, so maybe something with maps or geography.

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
40 million galaxy spectra! The operations of DESI have gone so well (observing running months ahead of schedule despite the Contreras Fire), so I feel like that sets the standard for the rest of the collaboration.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am the manager of the DESI focal plane system, consisting of 5000 fiber-positioning robots and 10 cameras for guiding and focusing the telescope.

Where were you born?
I was born in Cambridge, England, and spent my early years in Bristol, Leeds and London, all in the UK, as well as Iran and Mexico. I went to high school and university in Toronto, Canada.

Where do you live now?
I came to California for graduate school, spent five years in France at CERN, then returned to California for a postdoc and faculty position. I now live in Irvine, which is just south of Los Angeles.

What do you do as part of DESI?
Each morning, I check on the 5000 robots to look for any problems during the night. The focal plane is a unique and central part of the DESI instrument, so I work on outreach materials to share the excitement with my collaborators and the public, including a poster, animations and 3D-printed models. I also work with my students at UC Irvine to better understand our quasar sample and Lyman-alpha forest absorption, and look for novel ways to apply machine learning methods.

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
A large survey like DESI offers such a great variety of interesting topics to work on, from instrumentation and operations to simulation and cosmological inference. I am excited to learn new skills every day, working with my students, in diverse areas such as electronics, statistics, machine learning, and visualization.

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Doing science isn’t only about publishing papers. Take advantage of the many opportunities to learn new skills and don’t be afraid to explore new avenues and change directions a few times in your career.

What do you do for fun?
I enjoy cooking and eating good food, building things, taking photos, and being active (especially running, soccer, and pickleball).

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
A sheep farmer in the Shetland Islands.

What excites/interests you most about DESI?
My collaborators. Although the DESI collaboration probably feels large to many of us, it is one of the smaller groups I have worked with, and we have an amazing team.

What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am a PhD candidate at the University of Utah primarily involved with Lyman-alpha forest cosmology studies.

Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I am from Omaha, Nebraska, and I now live in Salt Lake City, Utah. SLC is easily the most incredible and beautiful place I have ever lived!

What do you do as part of DESI?
I work on developing spectroscopic models for the quasars observed by DESI. These models will help us maximize the cosmological information we can extract from the quasar sample.

What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
The potential for DESI to discover things that no one was expecting or looking for.

Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
In the words of Alie Ward: “ask smart people stupid questions”. Because in reality, there are no stupid questions. Never let anyone discourage your curiosity.<

What do you do for fun?
I try to spend as much time as I can outdoors: hiking, long camping trips, skiing, roller skating, and any sort of wildlife watching. I also love communicating science to the public. I host Astronomy on Tap in Salt Lake City, am a science communicator with the Natural History Museum of Utah, and volunteer at the local zoo. Finally, I have 3 perfect cats who command the remainder of my time.

If you weren’t a scientist, what would be your dream job?
A wildlife or park ranger… maybe in Alaska 🙂