Research group

At IRyA, I work very closely with Dr. Alfonso Trejo and Prof. Jesús Toalá on topics related to evolved stars. Like me, they are both members of the NESS team.
The group also consists of masters and doctoral students at IRyA, who are listed below.

Current masters students
  • Itzel Alejandra Velázquez: Itzel's thesis focuses on the modeling of the dust around some carbon-rich detached-shell asymptotic giant branch stars that are part of the NESS program.
    Itzel is co-supervised by Prof. Jesús Toalá, and she will defend her thesis in 2024.

Past students
  • Emir Josue Hernández (masters, IRyA)
  • Said Isaac Rodríguez Alonzo (bachelors, Universidad Autonóma de Ciudad Juárez, thesis defended in 2022).
  • Dayra Berenice Torres Moreno (bachelors, Universidad Autonóma de Ciudad Juárez, thesis defended in 2022).
  • Antonio Perez Vidal (masters, Valencia International University, thesis defended in 2021).
  • María Henar Sarmiento (masters, Valencia International University, thesis defended in 2022).
  • Iván Arturo Pla Guzman (masters, Valencia International University, thesis defended in 2023).
  • Diego Alejandro Vasquez Torres (masters, IRyA, thesis defended in 2023).

Research interests

I am interested in understanding the properties of dust in various environments.
Some of my areas of interest are
  • Dust production in evolved stars,
  • The dust budget and lifecycle of dust in nearby galaxies,
  • The radiative transfer modelling of dust,
  • Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting,
  • The mineralogy of dust in various environments, and
  • The automated classification of mid-infrared spectra
As a result, I have also developed an interest in statistical methods, machine learning, and the manipulation of large datasets.
I am also passionate about open science and reproducible research.

I am a key member of the Nearby Evolved Stars Survey (NESS), a program targeting a volume-limited sample of mass-losing AGB stars within 3 kpc of the Sun to derive the dust and gas return rates in the Solar Neighborhood, and to constrain the physics underlying these processes.

For students

Our group is always looking for students at all levels (bachelors, masters, and doctoral) to carry out projects related to the above fields of research. Prospective topics of study include, but are not limited to the following:
1. Fitting the profiles of rotational emission lines of carbon monoxide using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to obtain the expansion velocities of the stellar wind that is producing mass loss.
2. Developing radiative transfer codes to investigate the properties of dust around evolved stars as well as in other environments.
3. Analysing multiwavelength light curves of evolved stars using the PGMUVI (Scicluna et al. 2024) code.
4. Automated classification of evolved stars from their photometry/spectra.
5. Developing citizen-science based classification of evolved stars from their photometry/spectra.
6. Developing software to compile datasets for stars by querying astronomical data archives.

These and other related projects will provide experience in Python proficiency/software development, and in the statistical analysis of large datasets as well as an understanding of the basics of evolved stars and dust. These skills will propel you towards a career in astronomy or in data science.

The Data Analysis Working Group @ IRyA (DAWGI)

The group is a community of students and researchers at IRyA who are interested in the various aspects of data analysis, including visualization, statistics, open science, and reproducible research. The group meets once a month. More information about our meetings can be found here.