This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Dr. Rose Finn (Siena College) will quantify the relative importance of the physical mechanisms that cause galaxies to evolve from blue, actively star-forming galaxies to red, passive galaxies by studying the gas and stellar properties of galaxies in 10 low-redshift groups and clusters. All 10 groups and clusters have or will have optical photometry and spectroscopy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, infrared data from the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer camera on board the Spitzer Space Telescope, and radio data from the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array Survey. This combination of data provides a powerful probe of the disk gas and its depletion. The results will enhance our understanding of how the environment affects a galaxy's supply of cold disk gas, a central question in galaxy evolution.
As a part of this project, Dr. Finn will also work to increase the number of Siena College graduates who pursue careers in physics, astronomy, and related fields by facilitating curricular changes in high school and undergraduate physics courses, by involving undergraduates in research for 3 of their 4 years, and by introducing an astronomy concentration within Siena's existing physics major. In addition, Dr. Finn will develop a new assessment tool that measures a student's ability to think independently and solve real-world problems.
