Aaron Evans

Aaron Evans

(University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

Aaron Evans received his B. Sc. (Physics & Astronomy) from the University of Michigan in 1990) and his M. S. and Ph. D. in Astronomy from the nstitute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii in 1993 and 1996. He was recently n Assistant Professor, at the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, SUNY at Stony Brook. Currently, he is on-staff at the astronomy department at Caltech.

His current research primarily deals with observations of colliding galaxies and their associated phenomena (starbursts and active galactic nuclei [AGN]). The study of these galaxies requires a multi-wavelength approach, which to date has included optical to mid-infrared imaging, as well as near-infrared and (sub)millimeter spectroscopy. The observing facilities used to carry out these programs are the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii (UH 2.2m, UKIRT, JCMT, Keck), the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Owens Valley Millimeter Array in California, the Steward Observatory 12m telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona, and the IRAM 30m telescope in Spain.

Much of his work on colliding galaxies has involved the GOALS project (Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey) — a large investigation of luminous and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies. This survey combines observations from Hubble, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

Bill Keel

Bill Keel

(University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)

Bill Keel attended Vanderbilt University and UC Santa Cruz for graduate work, following a summer stint at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

His dissertation work at Lick and Mt. Lemmon Observatories concentrated on the spectra of galactic nuclei. He worked for three years at Kitt Peak National Observatory and a two-year international position at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. My research has taken me from the Caucasus to Mauna Kea to Chile and many points between to gather data, and I've been able to make use of data collected in Earth orbit and from almost the distance of Mars.

"I've been lucky enough to work with HST data since the first cycle (originally getting involved because of experience in deconvolution of ground-based images), and am still amazed at the kinds of observations that have become possible after so many years of speculation. My research deals with both nearby and distant galaxies. Interacting galaxies have been a perennial favorite, with dust in galaxies and galaxy evolution strong recent interests. You can see and read more about it at my homepage, www.astr.ua.edu/keel, and my picture collection. "