Chun Ly, Ph.D.

NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center
chun.ly [at] nasa.gov

About Me

Hello! If you haven't figure out by now, I'm Chun. I'm currently a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Previously, I was a Giacconi Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute. I completed my Ph.D in Astronomy at University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to UCLA, I was at University of Arizona.

I enjoy the small things in life. From being able to walk, run, and bike, to hopping on a plane for my next adventure.

Research and Academia

My current astronomical research aims to determine how galaxies, such as our own Milky Way, were formed and how they evolved over the past ten or so billion years. My past work has characterized the stellar population, star formation rate (SFR), and the luminosity function of galaxies at multiple epochs. I utilize different empirical techniques to identify star-forming galaxies, and study their stellar and gaseous properties.

Next page: Star Formation and Chemical Enrichment across Time

My CV and Publication List

Star Formation and Chemical Enrichment across Time

A key question in galaxy formation is how do the connected processes of star formation, gas accretion, feedback from supernova, and metal enrichment transform galaxies across cosmic time? Answering this question requires extensive observations that measure the SFR, stellar mass, and gas-phase metallicity of star-forming galaxies.

I am leading two independent emission-line surveys, the Subaru Deep Field and the NewH&alpha Survey, which will yield direct constraints on these physical processes at large look-back times. These surveys utilize deep spectroscopy to detect red-shifted nebular emission lines, which are good proxies for the gas metallicity content.

Next page: The Environmental Dependence of Star Formation
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The Environmental Dependence of Star Formation

Related to the previous topic, astronomers are trying to determine how the local environment drives evolution and formation of galaxies. Different surveys have examined this question, but often results are very conflicting and controversal.

To further address this outstanding problem, I am leading the effort to investigate the halo mass–SFR correlation for a large sample of high redshift star-forming galaxies identified in the NOAO Deep-Wide Field Survey. This study utilizes an extremely wide area to statistically determine the clustering of galaxies. To obtain precise redshifts and SFRs, near-infrared spectroscopy are utilized to detect Hα.

Next page: Academia, Mentorship, and Educational Outreach
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Academia, Mentorship, and Educational Outreach

I have had the fortunate opportunity to teach and participate in public outreach. While I was a graduate student at UCLA, I was a teaching assistant, where I led discussion sections and labs for introductory astronomy classes to both non-science and science major students.

Recently, I have participated in Project ASTRO, an NSF-funded program to enrich K-12 education with physical sciences by giving students the opportunity to learn and interact with professional and amateur astronomers.

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Eat, Exercise, and Live

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