Meet the team
Dr. Pratika Dayal
The Principal Investigator of the DELPHI project. Pratika did her PhD at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (Potsdam), and the Institute for Astronomy (Edinburgh) and as an Addison Wheeler fellow at the Institute for Computational Cosmology (Durham) before moving to the Kapteyn Institute (Groningen) as an Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin fellow. Her research interests cover galaxy formation, the epoch of reionization, graviational waves and the nature of Dark Matter. More detailed information about Pratika can be found on her website: pratika-dayal
e-mail: p.dayal at rug.nl
Funding body: ERC starting grant (DELPHI; project code 717001)
Dr. Anne Hutter
Anne did her PhD at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (Potsdam) supervised by PD Dr. Volker Mueller. She then moved to the Swinburne Institute of Technology to take up a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Darren Croton before moving to the Kapteyn Institute as a postdoctoral fellow in July 2018. Anne is an expert on numerical radiative transfer techniques and is leading our calculations to understand the galaxy-reionization interplay in the first billion years. More detailed information about Anne can be found on her website: https://annehutter.github.io
e-mail: a.k.hutter at rug.nl
Funding body: ERC starting grant (DELPHI; project code 717001)
Fabio received his Ph.D. in Physics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, with the Thesis "The First Black Holes in the Cosmic Dark Ages", supervised by Andrea Ferrara. After a postdoc at Yale University, he is now a NOVA Fellow at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute. Fabio's research focuses on studying the formation, cosmological evolution and observational properties of the first population of black holes formed in the Universe and is performed with a combination of analytical/numerical methods and observations. More detailed information about Fabio can be found on his website: www.fabiopacucci.com
e-mail: f.pacucci at rug.nl
Funding body: The Dutch NOVA consortium
Dr. Fabio Pacucci
Graziano's research focuses on the physical properties of the different phases of the Interstellar Medium, using emission line spectra (mainly in the optical and mm wavelength range). Graziano is an expert on Data Analysis, Photoionization codes, and Machine Learning. He did his PhD at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, with the Thesis "The Interstellar Medium of Galaxies: A Machine Learning Approach" under the supervision of Andrea Ferrara and Simona Gallerani before moving to Kapteyn Astronomical Institute as a Postdoctoral fellow in March 2019.
e-mail: g.ucci at rug.nl
Funding body: ERC starting grant (DELPHI; project code 717001)
Dr. Graziano Ucci
PhD students
Laurent was a Master's student in Astrophysics at the Observatory of Strasbourg before joining our group in February 2018. His research focuses on incorporating the DELPHI galaxy formation model into a state-of-the-art N-body simulation and following early galaxy formation against a consistent reionization background.
Funding body: ERC starting grant (DELPHI; project code 717001)
Laurent Legrand
Jonas was a master student (University of Groningen) and has stayed on as a doctoral student since November 2017. His research focuses on using the DELPHI galaxy formation model to understand the escape of ionizing photons from galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR).
Funding body: ERC starting grant (DELPHI; project code 717001)
Jonas Bremer
Olmo was a part of the Astromundus Master Program (University of Goettingen) before joining our team as a doctoral student in January 2016. His research focuses on incorporating black holes in the DELPHI the semi-analytic model to understand their role, both, in the processes of early galaxy formation and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR).
Funding body: University of Groningen's & European Commission's Rosalind Franklin program
Olmo Piana
Previous team members
1. Thijs Luggenhorst, undergrad research student in 2018
2. Nikki Arendse, Master research student from 2017-2018
3. Marenthe Hopma, Master research student from 2017-2018
4. Jonas Bremer, Master research student from 2016-2017
5. Folkert Nobels, Master research student from 2016-2017