The team
Paola Di Matteo
I am the P.I. of this project, started in October 2015, and funded by the ANR till October 2019. Since I still persist not to have a personal webpage, here some quick facts about my career. I completed my PhD in Rome, at the University La Sapienza in 2005, before moving to Paris as a postdoctoral reseracher. Since 2011, I am an associated astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon.
My scientific interests and research topics are currently focused in understanding galaxy evolution. A natural place where to start this research from is our own galaxy, the Milky Way, for which spectacular data are now becoming available. I am currently interested in understanding what these data can tell us about the dynamical and chemical evolution of the Milky Way stellar populations (bulge, thin and thick discs, halo, globular clusters), and about the star formation history that the Galaxy experienced over time. Does the picture that emerges from the Milky Way fit in what we currently believe to be the main pathways of disc galaxy evolution ?
You can find a complete list of my publications here. If you wish to contact me, you can send an email to paola.dimatteo@obspm.fr
Misha Haywood
Misha is a an associated astronomer at the Paris Observatory. In the framework of the MOD4Gaia project, he is interested in studying Galactic stellar populations and their mutual links, and to reconstruct from them the mass growth of the Milky Way.
Francesca is currently a CNES postdoctoral researcher in our group at the Paris-Meudon Observatory. In the framework of the MOD4Gaia project, she is working on understanding the connection between the Milky Way bulge, the bar and the Galactic thin and thick discs. For this, she mainly analyses N-body simulations of MW-type galaxies evolved in isolation for several Gyrs.
Sergey is currently an ANR postdoctoral researcher in our group at the Paris-Meudon Observatory. By means of dissipative N-body simulations, he is studying the impact of bar formation on the star formation of gas-rich galaxies, and the chemical signatures left by these events on the stellar populations of disc galaxies.
Ingrid Jean-Baptiste
defended her PhD in September 2016, under the supervision of M. Haywood, A. Gomez and myself. Her PhD work has focused on the search for accreted stars in kinematic spaces (see Jean-Baptiste et al 2017), and on the properties of metal-rich globular clusters in our Galaxy.
Anthony de La Llave
Anthony worked with us, as an internship student, from May to December 2016. He was a student at INSA, Institut National de Sciences Appliquées de Rouen. As part of his internship, he integrated the orbits of all stars in the first Gaia release (TGAS) having radial velocities in the APOGEE or RAVE surveys. He currently works as a Scientific Software Engineer for SOGETI High Tech.
David Katz
Within the ANR project, David Katz is working on a detailed spectroscopic analysis of several thousand archive stars complemented with new high-resolution and high-signal-to-noise observations with the aim of combining these data with the best Gaia data. Analysis of this very high quality sample will provide age-chemistry and age-kinematics to constrain our models in the vicinity of the Sun.
Ana Gomez
Within the ANR project, Ana Gomez is working in understanding the chemo-kinematics links of the bulge stellar populations, and the signature left by a classical bulge, if any. For this, she analyses N-body simulations of boxy/peanut-shaped bulges, and compares these models to data coming from spectroscopic surveys, like APOGEE and GES.
