Evan Kirby - Curriculum Vitae

Education


B.S., Physics, honors and distinction
Concentration in Astrophysics

Stanford University June 2004
M.S., Astronomy & Astrophysics

University of California Santa Cruz December 2006
Ph.D., Astronomy & Astrophysics

 University of California Santa Cruz June 2009



Research Experience


Center for Galaxy Evolution Fellow UC Irvine
 August 2012-
faculty contacts: James Bullock and Crystal Martin
  • origin, evolution, and interpretation of the elements
  • stellar dynamics of dwarf galaxies
Hubble Fellow
 Caltech
 August 2009-August 2012
faculty contact: Judy Cohen
  • dynamical and chemical evolution of dwarf irregular galaxies
  • metal loss from dwarf galaxies
  • super-lithium rich giants
  • simple chemical evolution modeling for dwarf galaxies
  • multi-element abundances (Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti) for individual stars in Milky Way and coadditions of stars in M31 satellites
  • internal chemical dispersions and the destruction of lithium in globular clusters
Detailed Chemical Abundances UCSC October 2006-June 2009
advisor: Puragra Guhathakurta
thesis committee: Puragra Guhathakurta, Sandy Faber, Chris Sneden, Connie Rockosi
  • detailed abundances from moderate resolution spectra (Ph.D. thesis)
  • photometric and Ca II triplet spectroscopic metallicities of resolved RGB stars in the dwarf satellites of M31
  • gradients in the abundances of the satellites of M31 and the Milky Way
  • refining the measurement and [Fe/H] calibration of the Ca II infrared triplet


All-Wavelength Extended Groth International Survey (AEGIS) UCSC January-December 2006
advisor: Puragra Guhathakurta
  • star formation histories of low-mass (log M* < 8.5) galaxies using panchromatic broadband photometry from Spitzer, Palomar, Hubble, CFH, and GALEX and Ha spectroscopy from DEEP


Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe (DEEP2) UCSC September 2004-June 2008
advisor: Puragra Guhathakurta
  • determining the spectroscopic redshifts of single-line emission galaxies
  • confirming the identity of z ~ 5 Lya-emitting galaxies via spectral coaddition
  • locating and identifying serendipitously detected galaxies in two-dimensional spectra


QUEST at DASI (QUaD) Stanford University January 2002-June 2004
advisor: Sarah Church


University of California Los Angeles Research Experience for Undergraduates UCLA Dept. of Physics June-August 2003
advisors: Charles Whitten, Huan Huang, and George Igo


Teaching and Mentoring Experience


Mentoring High School Students
  • Zareen Choudhury (Harker School): spectral typing of isolated, massive stars in M31
 June 2012-present
  • Caroline Debs (Castilleja School): spectral typing of isolated, massive stars in M31
 June 2012-present
  • Paras Jain (Monta Vista High School): conversion of magnesium absorption line equivalent width in stellar spectra to magnesium abundances
 June 2012-present
  • Varun Mohan (Harker School): conversion of magnesium absorption line equivalent width in stellar spectra to magnesium abundances
 June 2012-present
  • Lucy Cheng (Harker School): coaddition of low signal-to-noise red giant spectra in order to measure the detailed abundance distritbuions of M31 satellite galaxies
 June 2011-present
  • Michelle Deng (Harker School): measurement of compositions of Andromeda stars by spectral comparison to Milky Way stars; carbon abundance measurements in stars in Milky Way dwarf galaxy
 June 2010-present
  • Andrew Zhang (Harker School): carbon abundance measurements in stars in Milky Way dwarf galaxy
 June 2012-present
  • Benjamin Chen (Harker School): conversion of magnesium absorption line equivalent width in stellar spectra to magnesium abundances
 June-October 2010
  • Namrata Anand (Harker School, Intel Science Competition National Finalist): spectral coaddition of M31 red giants with the intent of measuring detailed elemental abundances
 August-September 2009
  • Kevin Zhang (Harker School): matching observed spectra of M31 red giants to a template library to determine metallicity
 August-September 2009
  • Andrew Zhou (Harker School): separating M31 red giants from Milky Way dwarfs


 August-September 2009
Mentoring Undergraduate Students
  • Liuyi Pei (Caltech): infrared photometry of globular clusters
 August 2009-July 2010
  • Jody Hannibal (UC Santa Cruz): individual and statistical confirmation of M31 red giant identifications
 2008-2009
  • Basilio Yniguez (UC Santa Cruz): neural network technique to separate M31 red giants from MW dwarfs
 2008-2009
  • Jennifer Consiglio (UC Santa Cruz): optimizing methods to measure the Ca II infrared triplet
 2008-2009
  • Octavio Avila (UC Santa Cruz): optimizing methods to measure the Ca II infrared triplet
 Fall 2007
  • Heather Kaluna (UH Hilo): measuring redshifts and correlation functions for serendipitously detected galaxies in DEEP2
 2007
  • Katharine Fayram (UC Santa Cruz): matching galaxies serendipitously detected in DEIMOS spectra to their photometric counterparts in CFHT imaging
 2006-07
  • Darwin Fernandez (Hartnell Community College): spectral energy distributions in AEGIS


 2006
Mentoring Graduate Students
  • Tim Morton (Caltech): abundance distribution of stars in the Kepler field
 March 2011-present
  • Drew Newman (Caltech): initial mass function of elliptical galaxies
 March 2011-present
  • Xiaoting Fu (National Astronomical Observatories of China): demographics of lithium-rich, evolved red giants
 March 2011-present
  • Yang Lei (Peking University): coadditions of stars in M31 and its dwarf satellites in order to measure detailed chemical abundances


 November 2010-present
Teaching Assistantships
  • AY2: Introduction to the Universe (UCSC, Prof. Puragra Guhathakurta)
 Fall 2005
  • AY2: Introduction to the Universe (UCSC, Prof. Jean Brodie)


 Winter 2005
K-12 Outreach
  • Stars, Sight, and Science instructor as part of the California State Summer School for Mathematics & Science (COSMOS) for high school students
 Summer 2005
  • Henry's Place volunteer mentoring program for underprivileged elementary schools, Stanford University


 September 2001-June 2003
Undergraduate Tutoring and Advising
  • math and physics undergraduate tutor, Stanford University
 September 2002-June 2003
  • volunteer peer academic advisor, Stanford University
 September 2001-June 2002



Awards and Fellowships

Center for Galaxy Evolution Fellowship, UC Irvine

 August 2012-August 2015
Hubble Fellowship, Caltech

 August 2009-August 2012
Chancellor's Dissertation Year Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz

 September 2008-June 2009
Runner-Up, Best Presentation in Physical & Biological Sciences, Graduate Research Symposium, UC Santa Cruz

 May 16, 2008
Whitford Prize, for outstanding graduate student completing the second year, UC Santa Cruz

 September 2006
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

 September 2005-June 2008
Chancellor's Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz

 September 2004-June 2005
Jeffrey A. Willick Award, Stanford University, for outstanding graduating physics major

 June 2004
David S. Levine Award, Stanford University, for outstanding junior in physics

 September 2003


Professional Activities

Palomar Science Meeting SOC

 November 2012
SDSS-III/APOGEE External Reviewer

 January 2012
Caltech Science Representative to Keck/DEIMOS Upgrade

 April 2011-present
Project Scientist, Palomar Double Spectrograph Upgrade

 February 2010-present
Caltech/Keck Time Allocation Committee

 2010B and 2011A
Subaru/Prime Focus Spectrograph, Galactic Archaeology Working Group

 July 2011-present
LSST Working Group, "Milky Way and Local Volume Structure"

 September 2010-present
Referee: ApJ, ApJL, MNRAS, A&A, Polish National Science Center, Canadian TAC

 2010-present


Invited Talks

Small Stellar Systems in Tuscany

 June 2013
UCSD CASS Seminar
March 2013
 
UC Irvine Observatory Night
March 2013
 
Caltech Keck 20th Anniversary Celebration
March 2013
 
UH/IfA Astronomy Colloquium and Seminar

 February 2013
Keck Evening with Astronomers

 January 2013
UCSC Astronomy Colloquium

 December 2012
IAU Beijing, Complexity and Origin of Massive Star Clusters

 August 2012
UCLA Astronomy Colloquium

 April 2012
UH/IfA Astronomy Colloquium

 March 2012
KITP/UC Santa Barbara, First Light and Faintest Dwarfs

 February 2012
UC Irvine, Astrophysics/Cosmology Seminar

 February 2012
UC Riverside, Astronomy Seminar

 November 2011
Yale University, Astronomy Colloquium

 September 2011
UC Berkeley, Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar

 September 2011
UC Santa Cruz, KraftFest

 July 2011
Carnegie Observatories, Colloquium

 May 2011
UC Santa Barbara, Astronomy Seminar

 March 2011
UC Irvine, Astrophysics/Cosmology Seminar

 February 2011
Caltech, Astronomy Colloquium

 January 2011
UNLV, Astronomy Colloquium

 November 2010
UT Austin, Astronomy Colloquium

 October 2010
STScI, May Symposium

 May 2010

Interests


  • the photography of my wife, a Pasadena and Los Angeles children's photographer
  • classical music, particularly Romantic and post-Romantic composers
  • clarinet
    • winner, 2004 Stanford Concerto Competition, performed Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor on April 17, 2005, with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra in Memorial Church at Stanford University
    • Stanford Symphony Orchestra, September 2000-June 2004 plus a Carnegie Hall/European tour in June 2002 and a New Zealand/Australia tour including the Sydney Opera House in June 2005
    • Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra, January 1998-June 2000
  • road cycling