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Join the Physics and Astronomy Department in welcoming Andreia Carrillo, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Carleton College. 

There are billions of galaxies in the Universe, and despite their ubiquity, we are still perplexed by their formation and evolution across cosmic time. To fully understand the processes involved in galaxy formation and assembly, we need to fully resolve them. No other galaxies in the Universe can be studied with as much intricate detail as the Milky Way. As a Galactic archaeologist, I unveil the assembly of our home Galaxy by decoding the history embedded in the spatial, kinematic, and chemical information of its stars. Having data for millions of individual stars makes the Milky Way a unique test bed for theories on galaxy formation, observations that have required us to further refine and revise our understanding on how galaxies interact and evolve. Using stars as a fossil record, We have been laying the foundations to understand (1) the complete picture of the assembly history of our Galaxy, (2) the distinct nature of stars in different parts of the Milky Way, and (3) the building blocks of a galaxy.