Desika Narayanan
Associate Professor of Astronomy
University of Florida
Multiscale Star Formation Across Cosmic Time
Contact Information
Email: firstname.lastname@ufl.edu
Phone: 352-294-1864
Department of Astronomy, University of Florida.
211 Bryant Space Sciences Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Research
Multiscale Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics
My research focuses on theoretical models primarily related to cosmological galaxy evolution, star formation, and the interstellar medium (ISM). I develop large scale numerical simulations to simulate the interplay between small scale star formation, ISM physics, and global galaxy evolution. This approach is fun as it allows me to work on problems ranging from galaxy evolution during the epoch of reionization through molecular cloud structure in the Milky Way.
Simulation Code Development
I'm interested in high performance computing, and the development of large computer simulation software for astrophysics. To that end develop parallel radiative transfer packages for hydrodynamic simulations, and contribute to a number of distributed public code bases. I'm also interested in astrophysics in the era of large data sets, and collaborate with the University of Florida Informatics Institute, where I am an affiliate faculty member.
DAWN: The Cosmic Dawn Centre
I am an associate (and member of the founding team) of the recently formed international Cosmic Dawn Centre in Copenhagen. This research centre, funded by the Danish National Research Foundation is dedicated to understanding the formation of the first galaxies, stars and black holes in the Universe.
Pedagogy
I am committed to active and experiential learning at all levels. I enjoy teaching classes ranging from general education for non-majors through specialized graduate level courses.