Ryan Keenan, a graduate student of the Department of Astronomy was recently awarded a Fulbright fellowship to spend a year doing astronomy research in Chile beginning in March 2011.
Ryan will be collaborating with Dr. Roberto De Propris of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO) in La Serena, Chile, which houses some of the most powerful telescopes in the world.
Galaxies are known to evolve through various processes, one of the most dramatic being major mergers, which is to say, when two galaxies crash into each other and become one.
This collaboration will focus on understanding how the galaxies we see in the present day universe have been shaped by these collisions.
During this time, Keenan will also be involved in a collaboration with the CTIO Center for Astronomy Education (CADIAS; translated) in bringing astronomy in Spanish to students, rural communities, and the radio airwaves of Chile.