My field of research is galaxy formation and evolution. In particular, my expertise lies in the calculation of models for the spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations, i.e. galaxies and star clusters. These models find ubiquitous applications in astrophysics and cosmology. They are used to: * derive the physical properties of galaxies - age, mass, formation epoch and history - from observational data and trace galaxy evolution semi-empirically; * calculate the same properties out of galaxy formation simulations or semi-analytic models and predict galaxy evolution within a cosmological model; * derive the amount of dark matter in a galaxy by subtraction of the luminous matter; * determine galaxy photometric redshifts and redshift-corrections, e.g. k- and e; * design galaxy surveys; * design astronomical instruments such as spectrographs. Within this research field I lead a European-funded Marie-Curie Excellence Team Grant project called UniMass-Galaxy Evolution through Cosmic Time.

Stellar Population Models

Semi-analytic models with the M05 population models  to be activated soon