Astronomy

Overview

I am a Professor in the Astronomy Department at UF. After receiving my PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics under the supervision of Dennis Zaritsky at UC Santa Cruz in 2000, I spent one year at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a CfA Fellow. I subsequently spent three years as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Florida before taking a faculty position at UF in 2005.

Educational Background

• Ph.D., Astronomy, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000
• M.Sc., Astronomy, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1997
• B.Sc., Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, 1995

Research

My research focuses on the growth and evolution of structure in the universe, with an emphasis on galaxy and galaxy cluster evolution. A significant fraction of my work involves large extragalactic surveys, which are used to find rare objects (e.g. high redshift galaxy clusters) and measure evolution of the properties of the general galaxy population. I am also interested in observational cosmology and have in the past worked on projects to demonstrate the existence of dark matter and to conduct a census of baryons in nearby galaxy clusters. I am participating in the Euclid mission, I am a member of the TEMPLATES Early Release Science team for JWST, and am using HST to study intracluster light.

Areas of Expertise

• Galaxy Evolution
• Galaxy Clusters
• Observational Cosmology

Selected Publications

• "A Direct Empirical Proof of the Existence of Dark Matter", Clowe et al. 2006, ApJ, 648, 109
• "A Census of Baryons in Galaxy Clusters and Groups", Gonzalez et al. 2007, ApJ, 666, 147
• "EzGal: A Flexible Interface for Stellar Population Synthesis Models", Mancone & Gonzalez 2012, PASP, 124, 606
• "Galaxy growth in a massive halo in the first billion years of cosmic history", Marrone et al. 2018, Nature, 553, 51
• "The growth of brightest cluster galaxies and intracluster light over the past 10 billion years", DeMaio et al. 2020, MNRAS, 491, 37