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Who's Who Among the Kitt Peak Postdocs (1Dec94)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 40, 1 December 1994)

KPNO has a lively post-doctoral research program as evidenced by the
accompanying photograph of the postdoctoral fellows resident at KPNO for
the 1994-1995 academic year. Each year, KPNO is typically able to offer
one or two postdoctoral appointments supported directly by NOAO funds.
We are also pleased to be able to host Hubble fellows as well as a number
of other researchers supported by external grants.

This year we are pleased to welcome Stephane Charlot and Paola Sartoretti
to the program. Charlot is an NOAO postdoc and comes to us from a
postdoctoral position at the Center for Particle Astrophysics at the University
of California, Berkeley. Sartoretti is supported by NASA funds, and comes
to us from STScI, where she completed her thesis while officially enrolled at
the University of Padua.

With the start of a new year, we thought that this would be a good time to
summarize the research activities of all of our postdocs.

Edward Ajhar is supported by the HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera team
through KPNO staff member Tod Lauer. Ajhar is studying the stellar
populations in globular clusters in M31, as well as the cores of giant
elliptical galaxies from HST WFPC images. Ajhar with other collaborators is
using surface brightness fluctuation distances to early-type galaxies to
determine the nearby large-scale flow, as well as developing surface
brightness fluctuations as a probe of stellar populations.

Stephane Charlot is an NOAO postdoc mainly interested in the formation
and evolution of galaxies. His interests include phenomenological models of
galaxy formation, absorption-line systems of distant quasars, the evolution of
early-type galaxies in clusters, stellar population synthesis, and diagnostics
of the star formation history in galaxies.

Michael Corbin is supported by the HST Archive program, and is working
with Todd Boroson on the construction and analysis of a large sample of
combined ultraviolet and optical spectra of low-redshift QSOs based on
HST, IUE, and ground-based data. The goal is to compare the properties of
the ultraviolet and optical emission lines to develop a detailed model of the
line emitting regions. Projects with other collaborators include studying the
emission-line properties of the QSO population during the "QSO epoch" at z
~ 2, and studying the spectra and IR morphologies of starburst galaxies
having large numbers of Wolf-Rayet stars.

Stephane Courteau is an NOAO postdoc working on various problems in
cosmology and extragalactic astronomy. His main research focuses on the
global distribution of matter in the universe, as well as the mapping of mass
in individual galaxies, the effect of dust obscuration in disk galaxies, and
tests of galaxy formation theories. Courteau and his collaborators have
recently assembled the largest homogeneous catalog of galaxy peculiar
velocities, which they use as input for potential (POTENT) reconstruction of
local velocity and density fields, as well as for alternative velocity field
analyses.

Beatrice Mueller is supported partly by the Galileo imaging team through
KPNO staff member Michael Belton and partly by a grant from the Swiss
National Science Foundation. She is presently working on images of the
SL-9 comet impact onto Jupiter obtained both by Galileo and the 0.9-m at
Kitt Peak. She is also involved in numerical studies of rotational properties
of cometary nuclei.

Nalin Samarasinha is a NASA planetary science postdoc studying cometary
rotational states including long-term evolution of rotational states under
sublimation induced torques, as well as the inter-relationship between the
rotation and the orbital dynamics. In particular, Samarasinha is working to
explain the observed rotational behavior of comet Halley.

Ata Sarajedini is an NOAO postdoctoral fellow conducting research on the
stellar populations of the Local Group. In particular, he is trying to
understand the formation and evolution of the Local Group by studying the
ages and abundances of the globular clusters in its member galaxies.
Sarajedini has devised and refined a number of methods which allow more
precise determinations of cluster ages, reddenings, and metallicities. In
addition, he and his collaborators are investigating the nature of blue
straggler stars in open and globular clusters.

Paola Sartoretti is supported by the Galileo imaging team through KPNO
staff member Mike Belton. Sartoretti will be studying Jupiter's atmosphere,
with particular attention to the regions that are expected to be sounded by
the Galileo atmospheric probe. Sartoretti recently completed a PhD thesis on
the surface and atmosphere of Io based on HST Faint Object Camera data.
She is also interested in the search for extrasolar planets.

Sylvain Veilleux is a Hubble fellow studying the structure, dynamics, and
origin of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Specifically, Veilleux and
collaborators are exploring the effects of the AGN or central starburst on the
host galaxy and the transport of material from large scales into the active
region. Other work consists of testing the so-called unification theory of
active galaxies by using infrared spectroscopy to look through the obscuring
tori purported to exist in AGN. Veilleux and collaborators are also studying
luminous infrared galaxies to determine the origin of nuclear activity in
galaxies and searching for evolutionary links between active and starburst
galaxies.

                          [Figure not included]

    These are the postdoctoral fellows resident at KPNO for the 1994-1995
    academic year. Moving from left to right they are: (back row) Nalin
    Samarasinha, Michael Corbin, Stephane Courteau, Stephane Charlot,
    Edward Ajhar, (front row) Ata Sarajedini, Sylvain Veilleux, Beatrice
    Mueller, Paola Sartoretti.

Tod R. Lauer

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