Instituto de Física y Astronomía

PhD: The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA (2014)
Research Area: Star Formation, Star Clusters, Galactic Astronomy, X-ray Astronomy, IR Astronomy, Astrostatistics, Statistical Modelling
Telephone: (+56 32) 250 8457
email:  michael.kuhn at uv.cl
Webpage: http://ifa.uv.cl/~mkuhn/

About my research: My work focuses on the formation of stars and young stellar clusters. Most stars are born in clusters along with hundreds to thousands of other stars--for example it is likely that the Sun was born in such an environment. I use observations across the spectrum of light, including infrared and X-ray, to study the young stellar clusters in our Galaxy and make a census of their newborn stars. There are a number of open questions about how stars form, motivated by different theoretical models of for stellar cluster formation. By studying the populations of young stars, we can constrain models for how star-formation progresses (e.g. Do clusters form suddenly or gradually?) and the fate of young embedded clusters (e.g. Which environments produce bound open clusters?) in star-forming regions. I am interested in the use of spatial statistics to learn about subclustering, dynamical relaxation, cluster expansion, and mass segregation, and non-coeval star-formation history in star-forming regions.

PhD: Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Warsaw, Polonia (Septiembre de 2010)
Research Area: infrared astronomy, very low mass stars, brown dwarfs, cool atmospheres, stellar formation, stellar clusters, Milky Way, binaries
Publications:  ADS
Telephone: (+56 32) 299 5557
email: mairusz.gromadzki at uv.cl

About my research:  My main research projects are connected to the search and characterisation of very low mass stars and brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. Nearby objects generally have larger proper motions than more distant ones and I am searching for such high proper motion targets towards Galactic bulge and Galactic disk based on the VISTA-VVV survey. I am also involved  in near-IR spectroscopic and photometric follow up of new Y dwarfs candidates detected only in WISE W2 band.

PhD: Universidad de Utrecht, Holanda (2011)
Research Area: protoplanetary disks, transition disks, planet formation, high-contrast imaging, imaging polarimetry.
Publications: ADS
Telephone: (+56 32) 299 5551
email: hector.canovas at uv.cl

About my research: My main research area focus on the study of protoplanetary disks, and in particular, transition disks.  As an observer astronomer, I use high contrast imaging techniques to directly image the faint protoplanetary disks at optical wavelengths, near infrared and millimeter wavelengths (ALMA). I’m also interested in studying the fraction of close binaries in transition disks